


All The Things

by augustrain3



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-22 02:44:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 55,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13754583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augustrain3/pseuds/augustrain3
Summary: Canon-based fic following Alex and Sam’s journey to each other, starting with the final scene of 3x11.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I jumped on this ship, and I hope others have too.

“It keeps happening to me. I keep losing time.” 

Alex squints her eyes, trying to understand what Sam is saying, where this all is coming from. Sam’s eyes are filled with fear, something Alex has never seen from her. It’s a sharp contrast to her typically calm, composed demeanor. Alex quickly rises to her feet.

“Sam, just take a deep breath. It’s gonna be-“

“No, I don’t know where I’ve been.” Sam shakes her head frantically. “Alex, I think something’s wrong with me...” 

Despite the sear of pain when she puts weight on her fractured tibia, Alex takes two paces to reach Sam. Her hand reaches up to Sam’s forearm, trying to calm her, and she becomes acutely aware that despite “girls night” and holiday parties and spending so much time with Ruby, it’s the first time they’ve ever touched, ever been quite this close.

“Hey, look. Why don’t you sit?” Alex pleads. “We’ll figure this out.”

Alex feels Sam’s body relax slightly under her touch, but the fear is still present on her face. 

“I can’t, I mean, not right now,” Sam replies anxiously. “I have to get Ruby home. She has school in the morning. I’ve gotta talk to Lena, what the hell am I gonna tell Lena,” she adds, shaking her head in frustration.

“Okay, why don’t you call me when you get home? Once you get Ruby to sleep.”

“Are you sure? It’s already getting late,” Sam counters, glancing at her cell phone again.

“I’ve got nowhere to be tomorrow. Call me, okay? Please?”

Sam turns her eyes back up to Alex. She nods. “I will.”

—

Alex sits anxiously on her sofa, a glass of wine in one hand, her cell phone in the other. Her legs are propped up on the coffee table, her non-casted one shaking with nervous energy. 

Alex had tried desperately to calm Sam down, but now that she was alone to examine what had transpired, her uneasiness has continued to build.

It’s nearly two hours before Alex’s cell finally rings, and Alex had begun to wonder if Sam had reneged when the light on her phone showing Sam’s name on the caller ID had grabbed her attention. She answers before the first ring is over.

“Sam, hey.” 

“I’m sorry it took a while. I had to get Ruby to bed, and she wanted to tell me all about her incredible weekend with “the” Alex Danvers.”

Sam’s voice sounds lighter, and Alex smiles. 

“Thank you again,” Sam adds.

“Of course.”

“She’s grown quite fond of you.”

“Well, the feeling is mutual.”

After a brief silence, Sam breathes a long sigh, and the mood shifts. Sam’s tenseness is almost palpable across the line. 

“So...where do we start?” Sam asks, unenthusiastically. 

“What do you remember last? On Saturday. You left my place,” Alex inquires, remembering the day, remembering absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, remembering only Ruby’s excitement and Kara’s teasing and Sam’s smile, bright and broad and carefree. 

“Yeah, I drove home,” Sam replies carefully, as if fearful of mistaking her own recollection. “The car was supposed to pick me up there for the airport. But not for another hour.”

“Okay, did you have bags to pack?” 

“No, I’d already packed. I’d left my bags by the door so I could have as much time with Ruby that morning. I came inside and went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. I hadn’t slept well the night before...” Sam’s voice trails off. 

“And then what?” Alex urges. 

“That’s it... Alex, that’s all I remember,” Sam replies, and Alex heard the fear building again in her voice. 

“Ok, so did you drink the coffee?”

“I don’t know... let me check. No, it’s still here.”

“Do you remember the car arriving? Someone knocking on the door?”

No, nothing. My bags are right where I left them. How is this possible, Alex? A whole day, almost two days, gone? I don’t remember anything. Nothing between yesterday morning and two hours ago when I got in my car to come pick up Ruby. I mean, what is this?” Sam’s voice is frantic again. 

“We’ll figure it out, Sam, ok? I think we should run some tests,” Alex replies, trying to quell Sam’s panic. 

“No, no hospitals. Please.”

“Ok, no hospitals,” Alex agrees. “I can run the tests myself, but I need equipment.”

“What kind?

“An MRI ideally.”

“Easy.” Sam’s quick, matter of fact reply surprises Alex.

“Seriously?”

“L-Corp. We have one in the lab for research.”

“Perfect.”

“Yeah, we just need a doctor.”

Alex smirks. “You have one, at your service,” she tells Sam proudly. 

“Wait, you’re a doctor, Alex?”

“Past life.” 

“Wow!” Sam exclaims. “I guess I should I be calling you Doctor Danvers?”

Alex laughs nervously, feeling suddenly demure by how impressed Sam sounds. “I prefer Alex, but you can call me whatever you like.” 

The words come out before Alex even thinks of their connotation. What was that? she asks herself. Was she flirting? With Sam? She chastises herself. The choice of situation, person, timing. What could be more inappropriate. 

“Well, Alex Danvers, I cannot thank you enough,” Sam replies affectionately. 

And Alex tells herself it’s just the wine, but she feels a thrill in her chest that catches her breath. 

—

Sam lowers the cell phone from her ear and glances at the caller ID image. It’s a photo of Alex with Ruby at the Christmas party at Kara’s. Ruby is grinning from ear to ear, and Alex’s arm is around her, her expression a mix of pride and sincerity and joy. The photo flicks away after a quick second, but the image lingers in Sam’s mind. 

It’s already been a few months since her first encounter with Alex Danvers, but the woman has continued to surprise her. Sam’s never had anyone take a genuine interest in her kid, not without an ulterior motive, and so far, Sam hasn’t been able to show Alex to have a single one. Not to mention that Ruby has never been so taken with any adult like she has with Alex. They’ve developed a bond, starting from day one, that’s only seemed to grow. 

As Ruby rambled on earlier about the weekend, Sam had been surprised to feel a slight twinge of jealousy, not only of Alex getting the weekend with Ruby, but vice versa. 

As time went on, it has begun to seem like Alex was the true rare gem, and it has made Sam wonder on more than one occasion, where women like Alex Danvers were these days? Because Sam surely hadn’t been lucky to come across them. 

Sam moves to the wine fridge below her countertop and pulls out a bottle of Pinot gris, popping the cork and allowing herself a heavy pour. She lifts the glass, leans her elbows onto the counter, and takes a long sip. She rubs her forehead, again replaying the last forty-eight hours over and over, thinking maybe she’s missed something, thinking maybe a piece of her memory will creep back into focus, but it’s the same empty void. 

—

An hour later, after a second glass, Sam corks the wine bottle and places it in the fridge before drudging upstairs. 

Before crossing the hallway to her room, she stops at Ruby’s door, pushing it open slightly. A sliver of light from the hall coupled with the moon shining through the window illuminates her daughter’s face. She’s sleeping soundly, unaware of the tumult inside of her mother that Sam has been struggling so hard to hide. 

Sam crosses the room and quietly sits on the bed beside Ruby’s sleeping frame, being careful not to stir her. She pushes a stray lock of hair out of Ruby’s face and all at once sees the past converging. That chubby little baby with big brown eyes asleep in her arms those first few weeks of just the two of them when Sam realized she would never love anything more. That toddler taking her first step in the living room of their studio apartment back when Sam was taking night classes and working two jobs. That sweet shy girl on her first day of kindergarten who clung to her leg and cried for Sam to not leave her, who greeted her at the day with a wide. excited smile, which made Sam cry later that night as she realized her baby was growing up too quickly. 

Sam’s eyes fill with tears as the weight of what could be happening sinks in. 

Where would Ruby go if something happened to her? Who would care for her? Would she be loved? 

Sam furiously wipes the tears away, desperately trying to hold it together. If only for Ruby. 

—

It’s just after 7am on Tuesday when Alex gets on the road. 

Alex drives her DEO-issued black SUV because her cast has just come off the day before, and her leg doesn’t feel strong enough to take the bike out yet. It’s been two days since Sam had confided in her, and they’d since agreed that the early morning was the best time to borrow the L-Corp lab without drawing attention. 

On the drive, Alex pulls into the Shell station and runs inside to put $40 of gas into her tank. She grabs a canned espresso, and on her way back to the counter, she passes through the candy aisle. She stops when her eyes catch sight of a bag of lollipops, the ones her mom used to bribe her and Kara with to get their shots when they were little. “A pop for a shot” she would say. Alex smiles and reaches for them.

—

Minutes later, Alex pulls into the garage at L-Corp and hands her keys to the valet as Sam had instructed. 

She takes the elevator up a floor to the lobby where Sam said she would meet her. The elevator dings as the door opens, and despite being there nearly 10 minutes early, when she steps out, Sam’s figure is waiting just ahead, her back to Alex. 

“Hey,” Alex calls out and Sam turns, her face nervous. She’s wringing her hands.

Sam’s wearing a fitted grey suit jacket over a white buttoned silk blouse with pants cropped just above her ankles, revealing a pair of simple black pointed heels. It’s in complete contrast to Alex’s dressed down black sweater and jeans. 

As Alex walks up, she notices how Sam’s heels make her inches taller than herself. Despite her obvious anxiety a few nights before, Sam’s slender frame looks poised, composed, like she’s had years of practice keeping it together during catastrophes, like she doesn’t even know what it means to fall apart. It’s familiar. Alex feels like she’s almost looking at a reflection of herself. That unwillingness to let yourself be weak, be vulnerable, to take your guard down to others lest the world come crumbling down because you let go for a moment. 

“Hey,” Sam says, a broad relieved smile. 

—

“I’ll let you get dressed. And then I’m gonna buy you a coffee.”

Sam nods, and Alex steps out the door separating the MRI chamber from the outside corridor. The wall is all glass, so Alex takes a turn down the hall to give Sam her privacy.

She thinks about what Sam had said, about all the things Sam had imagined, and Alex hates that she knows far better than Sam the possibilities of what this could be. The last two days, everything she couldn’t pull from rote memory, she had spent hours researching. Plopped on her couch in front of the fireplace, glasses on the bridge of her nose, she waded through the differential diagnoses. Everything from intracranial neoplasm to epilepsy to multiple sclerosis to dissociative fugues. 

She’s worried, but she doesn’t want Sam to know how much. 

After several minutes, Alex is still waiting for Sam, and her concern begins to grow. Alex turns and makes her way back over to the glass wall separating the MRI from the rest of the lab when she spots Sam. 

Her cell phone is pressed to her ear. Her brows are furrowed, her face serious. She’s talking quickly, and though Alex can’t hear a thing, she knows it’s all business. 

But what draws Alex attention is that Sam has still not finished getting dressed, her call clearly interrupting her efforts and taking precedence. Sam’s white button down blouse is still undone. Alex can see a sliver of olive skin, and her eyes unwittingly move from Sam’s slender neckline down her chest to the curve of her breasts covered by a tan satin bra, and then over her flat toned stomach. She takes in a sharp breath before averting her eyes but the image lingers. She feels her face flush, and she turns her body away. 

She just finally has caught her breath when she hears movement and the click of heels behind her. Alex turns to see Sam approaching. 

“Sorry about that. Never off duty,” Sam says apologetically. 

“Boy, do I get that,” Alex smiles, trying to quell the flush she still feels on her cheeks. “Ready?”

“Yes, ready.”

—

Alex drives. She insists. No need for Sam to get her car out of valet only to replace it afterwards, when Alex can offer her curbside drop off. Alex feels oddly relieved when Sam submits. There is something about having something to do with her hands while sitting inches away from Sam that makes her nerves, nerves Alex didn’t ever notice having around Sam before, quell just enough. 

She parks the SUV out front of The Grind and the two women make their way inside to the counter.

“I’ve got this,” Alex says when Sam reaches for her wallet from her purse. 

“No, Alex. I insist.” Sam extends her hand and covers Alex’s, urging her to replace the twenty dollar bill back into her wallet. “And I owe you far more than just coffee.”

Sam’s hand is warm despite the chill outside. And soft. Alex lingers for a moment, Sam’s hand on hers, before replacing the bill in her wallet. 

“You don’t owe me. We’re friends.”

Sam smiles. “Well, I’d still like to do more than coffee to thank you,” she replies. “Is that allowed?” she asks with a smirk, her eyes fixed on Alex for a moment that, to Alex, feels eternal. 

Alex finally nods in agreement before Sam turns back to the cashier and slides her AmEx across the counter.

—

They take their seats at a small round two top in the corner where briefly, the moons feels lighter. Sam notices Alex’s cast has been removed and inquires how she’s feeling, asks how long her medical leave is, wonders what FBI desk work even means. It feels to Alex like Sam is trying to talk about anything but the real reason they are in each other’s company this morning, and Alex doesn’t mind. Sam looks more relaxed, releasing a few light laughs. Alex is surprised how easy it feels. They haven’t spent any time together really, not without Kara or Lena or Ruby, and yet, it feels like they’ve known each other far longer than these few months and their minimal conversations would suggest. 

At a lull in the conversation, Sam’s face grows serious again. 

“Alex.”

“Yeah?”

“Will you come with me? Tonight? To talk to Lena and Kara?” Sam asks nervously. 

“Of course,” Alex replies without hesitation. 

“Thank you. I just keep trying to figure out how to tell Lena about this and convince her she shouldn’t fire me,” Sam says, shaking her head. 

“She will not fire you, Sam,” Alex insists. “She cares about you. We all do.”

Sam sighs deeply. “It’s just so hard for me to let my guard down. To anyone. ”

Alex sees Sam shift uncomfortable, and she feels for her, understands the uneasiness of feeling exposed.

“You did with me. And that’s a step. But trust me, I know it’s hard.”

Sam squints her eyes at Alex curiously. “What ever happened? If you don’t mind me asking. With you and Maggie?” 

Now Alex feels herself tense. 

“You guys seemed really happy,” Sam adds, speaking slowly, carefully. 

Alex forces a smile. “It’s complicated.”

Sam nods. “Do you still talk?”

“Nope. Cold turkey, right? It’s the way to quit everything. Cigarettes, drugs, gambling, and apparently, engagements.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam replies sympathetically. 

Alex shrugs awkwardly. “I try to remind myself it was the right decision. Doesn’t always feel like it. I might end up dying alone,” she adds with a dry laugh, trying to lighten the tone of the conversation, to deflect. 

“Not a chance.”

Alex raises her eyes doubtfully. 

“Alex, any woman should feel lucky to land you,” Sam continues. “Not that you should take relationship advice from someone who hasn’t had as much as a date in 5 years though,” she says with a derisive laugh. 

“5? You’re lying!” Alex exclaims incredulously. “That’s impossible. I mean, you’re-“ Alex starts. _Beautiful? Driven? Successful? Intelligent?_ Alex thinks to say but stops short. 

“I’m what?” Sam interrupts. “Single mom? Workaholic?” Sam shrugs. “Twenty-somethings want adventure. They want spontaneous weekend getaways, waiting in line for hours just to get into the hot new club, sleeping in after a drunken night out, Coachella, I don’t know, Burning Man, you know? They don’t want 8am soccer games on Sunday mornings or Friday night school musicals and waiting in the ER for four hours on a Saturday because your kid has pneumonia.”

Alex nods. A long beat passes. 

“The right person will,” Alex finally replies hopefully. 

—

That afternoon, back at home, Alex ponders what Sam said, about relationships, about her love life, or the absence thereof. 

She thinks back to months before, to that “girls night” at Kara’s place, and to after, when she and Maggie had returned home. 

“Do you think Sam’s gay?” Alex wasn’t sure why she had said it out loud, why she’d even thought it, what caused her to sense that possibility. Maybe it was how insistent Sam had been when asked about Ruby’s father, as if to imply not only was there not one in the picture, but there never would be. 

“What?” Maggie had asked incredulously with a shocked laugh. 

“You know, Sam,” Alex had answered.

“No, I got who you were talking about. You developing your gaydar lately or something?” Maggie had asked with a slight laugh. 

Alex had shrugged. “Maybe. You don’t think so?”

“I think that Sam’s sexual orientation is called ‘being a single mom,’” Maggie had answered matter of factly. 

“Kind of harsh, don’t you think?” Alex had countered, surprised. 

“Kind of true, don’t you think? Kids change everything. You don’t get to focus on you anymore,” Maggie had insisted, weaving her arms around Alex’s waist and pulling her closer, seductively. 

Alex had frowned, moving away slightly from her touch. “Not everyone thinks that’s a bad thing.”

Maggie had released her hold, turning to hang her clothes in the closet. “Well, I rather like getting to keep all of my focus on us, on you,” she had responded, looking back at Alex over her shoulder. “You can kiss romance goodbye when you have kids, and gay or straight, I’m sure Sam Arias will agree with me.”

That had been the end of the conversation. 

Now, standing in the same room, in the same spot as that night, Alex thinks back to what she had said to Sam in reply just hours earlier, in response to her lament. And she hopes she is right, and not just for Sam’s sake. 

—

At half past six, Alex is waiting out front of L-Corp as promised. The winter sun has already set. Sam pulls open the door to the SUV, and Alex greets her with a warm smile. 

“Thank you again, for doing this. I never realized what a chicken I was,” Sam remarks sardonically. 

“You’re not a chicken,” Alex replies, steering out of L-Corp’s circle driveway. “Doing this takes guts.”

Sam nods, but doesn’t respond. While she appreciates Alex’s words, if she had any idea how sick Sam is feeling with fear inside, Alex wouldn’t be calling her brave. 

Moments later, they pull up to the looming CatCo skyscraper, and Sam takes a deep breath. She feels a touch and looks down to see Alex’s hand squeezing her forearm briefly but encouragingly. Her eyes raise to Alex, and Sam feels a burst of courage from Alex’s gaze. She nods knowingly. 

—

Nearly an hour has passed, and Alex sits near Sam on the couch across from Lena and Kara. Their reactions have been a mix of shock and concern and empathy. Alex’s eyes have moved between them and Sam, who she has been urging to continue speaking, at moments when she seems to want to retreat. 

Now, Sam is talking about Ruby, and her voice is shaking, her hands wringing, her body tensing, tears filling up her eyes. 

Alex’s hand unwittingly moves to Sam, as it had earlier, reaching across the narrow space between them and finding her knee. She grips it reassuringly. These last few days, she had found herself feeling protective of Sam in a way that surprises her. Alex is engrossed with Sam as she speaks, expressing the weight of her love for her kid is the most honest and vulnerable she has ever seen Sam. Her fear is palpable, and Alex can’t help but want to swallow it up, douse its flames, lock it away, so that Sam doesn’t have to feel any of it. 

Later, as they leave CatCo side by side, Alex notices that Sam is far quieter than she had been earlier in the day, and Alex can’t tell if she feels less emburdened or more by sharing the truth. She decides to give her a little space and not prod. She hopes she’s done enough to show Sam she’s there for her.

—

Alex pulls into the nearly empty parking garage at L-Corp. She navigates to Sam’s vehicle parked in her reserved spot near the elevators and idles adjacent. 

Sam lingers in the passenger seat. Something about being this near to Alex makes her feel safe, protected, like nothing bad could possibly happen within the confines of this car. No blackouts, no terminal diagnoses, no life-altering discoveries.

“How long until the blood work’s back?” Sam asks softly. 

“Not long. A few days at most. I sent it out already.”

“Thank you.”

“We’re going to figure this out, Sam. I swear to you. You have my word.”

“That’s partly what I’m afraid of,” Sam admits. 

Alex nods quietly in understanding. 

“Where’s Ruby tonight?” Alex asks after a long silence. 

“I had the sitter pick her up from school. Told her I had a meeting with Lena. At least that wasn’t a lie,” Sam says, punctuated by a frustrated sigh. 

“Hey. You’re a good mom, Sam. I know that’s what you’re worried about, but don’t be. Ruby is so lucky. She’s an amazing kid, and you did that. All of it. No one else can take the credit.” Alex reaches across the car and covers Sam’s hand with hers. It’s warm and strong and confident. Sam looks up at her, noticing the way her auburn hair falls a little bit over her face, how it frames her wide, bright, knowing eyes. It feels as though with every word, Alex is seeing right through her. 

“This is all just a temporary hiccup, okay?” Alex continues, a fierceness in her eyes and her voice. “You aren’t alone. We’ll get through this-“

Right then, without thinking, Sam shifts her weight and leans across the console until her lips are pressed to Alex’s, her hand reaching up to touch Alex’s cheek. Alex’s lips are soft, and fire spreads through Sam’s body. 

The feeling is only momentary though when she senses Alex freezing up almost immediately, her body tightening. Alex pulls away slightly, avoiding Sam’s gaze, and her heart sinks immediately. Regret seeps in quickly. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Alex,” Sam stumbles for words, feeling embarrassed and irresponsible and rash. “That was so inappropriate. I mean, you just got out of a relationship. This is the last thing you need. You’ve been so kind to me, and I completely overstepped.”

“It’s, um, it’s fine. Really,” Alex replies, shifting awkwardly, and Sam can tell by her body movements that it’s decidedly not fine. “It’s late though. I have an early morning. I should go,” she adds, her voice trailing off. 

Sam swallows hard, feeling her face burning with shame. “Of course, right.”

Sam turns her gaze and slips out of the car without another word spoken.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam slides into the driver’s side of her car and grips the steering wheel. She keeps her eyes straight ahead and waits until she hears the sound of Alex peeling away. It doesn’t take long until it’s quiet and she’s alone. 

She feels her eyes well up with tears. She slams her fist against the steering wheel, and the horn blares. 

“Fuck!” 

What were you thinking, Sam? she chastises. 

Alex doesn’t need this. The look on her face when Sam pulled away from the kiss, a mix of shock and discomfort, the way she stiffened at the touch, made that clear. 

Alex, who was just engaged.

Alex, who had just suffered the greatest heart ache of her life. 

Alex, who had just finished telling her that very morning how deeply it had hurt her. How hard it had been to go on after.

Why on earth would Sam think she had any space for someone else? For her? 

Sam shakes her head. 

Just because she’s nice to you doesn’t mean she wants more. And just because she’s nice to your kid doesn’t mean she wants an instant family. And hadn’t Alex said she didn’t plan on having kids? So why would Sam ever think Alex wanted to help raise hers? 

Even beyond how stupid and embarrassed she feels, the worst part still is that it hurts. Hurts more than Sam had ever thought it could. It’s been ages since she’d felt this way about someone. Years since she’d met someone who made her feel safe. Made her laugh. Who made her feel so at ease. Years since she’d met someone who even came close to understanding her so easily, who who give words to her thoughts that even she couldn’t find. Practically a lifetime since someone had gotten past her defenses, pulled down her wall, made a place in her heart. 

Why had she let this happen? How could she let her guard down. How could she act on something so rashly, so impulsively, so imprudently. Sam feels like she is coming apart at the seams. Feels like she is breaking. The accumulation of failures compounding. Everything from failing at being a mother to Ruby, at being a reliable executive for L-Corp, at being a decent friend to Alex.

And now she might have ruined things with one of the few good people in her life. 

—

Alex grips the steering wheel tightly as she drives. She had planned to go home, but she can’t stomach heading back to her empty, quiet apartment. Not now. Not after that.

She feels like she does after a sparring match, after a head to head fight. Heated and breathless and energized. 

She turns on the radio to try to will it from her mind. She can hardly believe what just happened, but more so, how it had made her feel. 

Alex tries desperately to erase the feeling riding up inside her chest from that kiss. From the feel of Sam’s lips. From the amber scent of her skin. From the soft waves of hair that had grazed her cheek. From Sam’s warm hand on her face. 

She felt so many things, but what surprised her most of all was just how strong her desire was in that moment, the way it had spread like fire through her body. She was taken aback by just how badly she wanted to sink into Sam’s kiss, pull her closer, tangle her hands in her hair. How it nearly overrided all of her better judgements. How she’d been so close to letting herself give in. 

Her anxiety builds as she realizes just how how strongly her own denial has been. That she’d been refusing to acknowledge how increasingly drawn she had become to Sam. That she’d blinded herself to what had been happening. That she had found a way to willfully overlook what now seemed so obvious, what had finally come to a head tonight when Sam made it impossible to ignore what had been building under the surface, that there was something between them. That Alex had found something here she had never been looking for. 

Alex feels short of breath, light-headed. Her heart is racing. 

She isn’t ready for this. Isn’t ready to be feeling this. Feel things that she hadn’t felt in so long. Things she had only ever felt once before. Things she thought she might never feel again.

So she doesn’t go home. She needs a distraction, something to take her mind off of the weight of what just occurred, something to re-center her. 

Because she can’t, she reminds herself. She can’t do this...

—

“What are you doing here?” Winn asks, as he catches sight of Alex striding into the DEO’s mainframe. “Aren’t you still on medical leave?”

“I’m antsy. Give me desk work,” she barks sharply. 

“I’ll have to check with the boss...” Winn starts.

Alex flashes him a stern look.

“-which is you! Obviously. Let’s see. I’m still looking for the other world killers?”

“Great, I’m on it.”

—

It’s five days before Alex picks up her phone again to contact Sam. She’s been worried, wanting to check in, but every time she goes to dial her number, she wonders how to address the elephant in the room. So she doesn’t. 

She returns to work, and though she’s still on desk duty, she spends time between assignments in the DEO training room, rehabbing her leg. She blares the music at 100 decibels to drown out her thoughts. She focuses on her uppercut and her drop kick. 

It’s a decent distraction, but every night, she returns home to her quiet apartment, and she’s forced to come face to face again with what happened. With what she felt. She sits, nurses a glass of wine, and breaks it down again and again.

Maybe it isn’t real, she tells herself. Maybe what she’s feeling is just a manifestation of her loneliness. Maybe it’s only because Sam had caught her off guard, she tells herself, and not that it was her own feelings that really blindsided her. 

Alex tells herself to stop ruminating. It doesn’t matter what she feels or doesn’t feel. It’s reckless. She’s broken. It’s too soon. 

—

Sam feels herself tense as soon as she sees the name on the caller ID. 

“Alex, hi,” Sam says, swallowing hard. 

“Hey, Sam. How are you?” Alex asks, and Sam can’t tell from her tone if she’s referring to the fall out from that night, if she’s asking if Sam’s had any more black outs, or if she’s just being nice. 

“Good, fine, I guess. What’s up?” Sam asks nervously. 

“So your test results are coming back today,” Alex tells her, and it becomes clear to Sam that the motive for the call is strictly business. “I’m over at Kara’s,” Alex continues. “I wanted to see if you could to stop by today so I can share them with you.”

“Yeah, sure. I can swing by while Ruby’s at her piano lesson.” 

“Ok, see you soon.”

—

Sam stands at the door to Kara’s apartment and lingers. She wonders if maybe she’s not ready to know what waits on the other side, if it would be better not to know, if ignorance truly is bliss. 

Not to mention her anxiety at coming face to face again with the person on the other side. The call from Alex this morning was the first word from her in five days. After spending so much time together, it was a jarring change. Alex’s absence felt palpable; it felt intentional and deliberate. Sam knew she had successfully alienated Alex, incited this distance, and now, Sam could feel the void. 

Sam finally knocks, and the door opens. Alex stands on the other side. Sam’s eyes move over Alex’s lanky frame, taking in the angles of her face. She shifts awkwardly, feeling a lump on her throat, feeling the embarrassment from the other night settle back in. 

“Hey,” Alex says with a sympathetic smile. 

Sam forced a smile and hesitates in the doorway, before something in the background draws her eyes. She looks around Alex and sees Lena and Kara seated on the sofa. 

“Oh. You all are here. It’s bad, isn’t it?” 

“It’s just for support,” Alex insists, motioning Sam in. “I haven’t gotten the call yet.”

Sam nods and enters cautiously 

“Can I get you anything? Water?” Alex offers casually as she moves towards the fridge, looking over her shoulder as she asks. 

Sam notices how relaxed Alex seems in comparison to herself, the way she looks at her like they are the same old friends as they were last week, like maybe Sam was reading into these last few days of silence, or like maybe the kiss had been nothing but a dream. 

It makes Sam feels more unsettled than less. 

“I’m good, thanks,” Sam replies. “Alex-“ Sam starts, before she even knows how she will finish. 

Alex turns back from her route to the fridge. Sam hesitated again, and Alex looks at her expectantly. 

“Alex, about what happened...” Sam says, gesturing with her hands nervously. “I feel awful...”

Alex flashes a smile, and Sam thinks maybe it’s a little forced, a little too intentional. 

“It’s nothing. Water under the bridge. Forget about it,” Alex answers nonchalantly. 

Sam nods, feeling her heart sink even further in her chest. 

“I will do that,” she whispers under her breath as she takes a step back and moves towards Lena and Kara. 

—

Alex watches Sam’s figure as she retreats twenty minutes later. They had convinced her to take the good news and try to relax, and it seemed like she was reluctantly willing, but Alex could see the anxiety still present in her face. Alex wills herself to stay in her seat, when what she really wants is to go after her, catch her in the hallway and pull her into her arms, tell her again not to worry, that she will figure this out, that everything will be okay. That she promises. But the truth is that she isn’t sure. 

What if I’m wrong? she wonders. What if Sam really is sick? What would happen? How would Ruby handle it? Sweet, bright, naive, innocent Ruby. 

How would I...

Her fear feels like a weight on her chest, and she realizes that it’s getting harder to deny just how deeply she cares about what happens to Sam. 

—

“You working something out with that punching bag?”

Alex looks up to see J’onn standing in the doorway of the training room at the DEO. His arms are crossed, but his face is warm. 

It’s been two weeks since Alex’s cast came off, and she’s back to full duties. She’s wearing fitted black spandex pants and a black racer back tank. She’s spent the last two hours aggressively taking things out on a punching bag. She hasn’t called Sam in weeks because she made a promise to herself to stay away, to not get any more invested, to let these feelings fade. 

She pulls off her boxing gloves and tosses them on the floor before moving to the side of the room to a bench near J’onn. He takes a seat beside her. 

“Has anyone told you you shouldn’t eavesdrops on people’s thoughts?” Alex asks, trying to lighten the mood.

“I don’t need to read your mind to know there’s something on it.”

Alex nods. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve checked in. How are you holding up, Alex?”

Alex shrugs, shakes her head, can’t find her words.

“You know, when my wife died, Alex, I didn’t know how I would go on. It felt like my heart had been ripped right out of my body. I sunk into grief. That became my life. I lived in that sadness,” he explains. “I couldn’t pull myself out of it, but partly because I didn’t want to. I felt like if I stopped grieving, it would erase her memory, erase how much she had meant to me, erase how life-changing our love had been.” 

Alex swallows hard, trying to will back the tears fighting to emerge. 

“Even when I met M’gann, I fought it tooth and nail. I didn’t feel like I was ready to be happy. Like I deserved to be happy.”

“It just feels too soon,” Alex whispers, her eyes welling up. 

He wraps his arm around Alex, pulls her a little closer. 

“Let me let you in on a secrets. It always feels too soon, Alex. But you deserve to be happy.”

She sinks into him, her head resting on his shoulder, tears falling down her cheeks. 

—

That night, Alex crawls into bed after a long hot shower. The sheets feel cool against her skin. Her conversation with J’onn has been on her mind since she left the DEO that evening. 

She’s refused to admit it, but she misses Sam. Misses the way her smile spreads all the way to her eyes and misses the lilt of her voice, misses her self-deprecation, misses their easy banter, the way they relax into each other like something old and familiar. 

Alex had kept telling herself it was too soon, she wasn’t ready, she was still in pain. 

For months, Alex’s heart had been closed off and empty and cold. But unexpectedly, something had developed between her and Sam. This trust. This intimacy. This connection. 

In the wake of misery and loss and loneliness, something bigger had crept up and started to take root. In many ways, it felt wrong. Disrespectful. Irreverent. Alex hated herself for it. 

But the truth was, spending time with Sam had started to heal her, had started to take down her wall, fix the broken pieces of her heart. It make her feel like she wasn’t all alone. 

Like maybe she didn’t have to be...

Like maybe it was okay not to be...

—

Sam is at work late sipping lukewarm coffee and going over dividends reports when her cell phone starts buzzing under a mound of papers. She reaches for it, halting when she sees the name on the caller ID.

It’s been nearly two weeks since they had last spoken, and Sam had become convinced that she hadn’t been reading into Alex’s distance, especially after their last encounter. 

Forget about it... Alex had said. 

So Sam had tried. She had buried herself in her work, navigating an acquisition and coming in early to review marketing budgets. She buried herself at home trying to be a better mother, helping Ruby with her homework and making it to her weeknight basketball games. 

She hadn’t had any more “episodes,” and she’d been becoming hopeful that maybe everything would be all right. 

Until she sees Alex Danvers on the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Sam, it’s Alex.” When Sam doesn’t readily reply, Alex continues. “Any chance you could meet me after work tomorrow for a drink? We need to talk.”

Sam takes a deep breath. This can’t be good.

“Okay, sure.”

“6 o’clock? At the Lexington on Broadway?”

—

At five past 6 that evening, Sam steps through the door to the Lexington. It’s a dimly lit speakeasy tucked into the basement of an old bank building downtown. It’s all dark wood and leather arm chairs with the glow of candles illuminating each table. Low level jazz music plays in the background. 

Sam spots Alex across the bar when she lifts a hand to catch her attention. She’s wearing a black leather jacket over a burgundy shirt that hangs low on her neckline, just like the first day they’d met, the day Alex Danvers walked into her life, before Sam knew how much she would turn it upside down. 

Sam makes her way over and pulls herself onto the barstool, feeling anxious. 

“So did you find something else out? Were we wrong about the MRI? It’s cancer, isn’t it?” Sam rubs her forehead. “Oh god, how am I going to tell Ruby.”

Alex furrows her brows. “No, Sam, no. That’s not-“ Alex says, shaking her head. “It has nothing to do with that.” Alex pauses, takes a deep breath. “I wanted to talk about that night. In my car.”

“Oh... Like I said, I’m so sorry about that, Alex,” Sam replies, her voice pleading, hoping desperately that Alex will let them put this behind them, that they can go back to at least friends. “I couldn’t be more sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Sam-“ Alex interrupts. Her expression is a touch bemused, and Sam feels confused. 

“What?”

“Can I get you a drink?

“Sure. I’ll take a greyhound.”

“Be right back.”

Sam watches Alex rise from her seat and weave her way over to the bar counter. Sam can’t help but admire the way her body moves, but she forces her eyes away before too long. She relaxes a little into her seat. If Alex is buying her a drink, maybe this is a peace offering, a starting over. 

Alex returns minutes later with Sam’s drink in one hand and her own in the other. She has a slight smile on her face, and it’s enough to send a rush of flutters through Sam’s body. 

“Thank you,” Sam says, lifting the glass to her lips and letting the sour warmth slide down her throat. 

“What’s that?” Sam asks, gesturing to Alex’s. 

“Old fashioned. The best in town. Want a sip?” Alex offers, sliding the glass across the table. 

Sam takes a small swig. “Ooo, that’s better than mine. Want to swap?”

“No! Ew.” Alex laughs, and it drops Sam’s tension immediately. She savors the sound of it. “I hate grapefruit.”

“You hate grapefruit? Who hates grapefruit?”

“People with discerning tastes,” Alex insists with a smirk.

“Oh, is that so?” Sam banters back, a smile finally appearing on her own face. 

“Mmhmm.”

Sam lets out a small laugh, and their eyes lock for a long moment. 

Alex is the first to look away, down to her hands wringing on the tabletop. Sam thinks she looks nervous, and it makes her uneasy not knowing why.”

“So I wanted to apologize for how I reacted,” Alex starts. 

“It’s not necessary, really.” 

“-and explain. I just... I panicked.”

Sam nods. “I did notice that.”

“I never told you...why I broke up with Maggie,” Alex continues, and Sam swears she hears her voice starting to quiver. “I mean, the truth.”

“It’s okay, it’s not my business, and I shouldn’t have prodded.”

“It was you.”

Sam squints her eyes, studying Alex’s face, trying to make sense of what she’s saying. 

“Excuse me?”

“Meeting you,” Alex adds. 

Sam shakes her head. “I’m not following...”

“Maggie doesn’t want kids... I didn’t know that when we got engaged. I guess it’s the sort of thing you should discuss beforehand, but I just... assumed. But she doesn’t. Not now, not ever...” 

It finally hits Sam, everything coming into glaring clarity. 

“And you do...”

“More than anything,” Alex tells her, a glint of tears in her eyes. “And meeting you, Sam...meeting Ruby. I realized that I wanted that. I wanted what you have. And it hit me hard that I couldn’t have both, that if I stayed, I was never going to be a mom. The thought of giving that up, it felt like...” Alexis voice cracks. “Like giving up the air I needed to breathe. Does that make any sense?”

Sam’s eyes move over Alex’s face, awash with emotion. She remembers when her adoptive mother Patricia found out she was pregnant with Ruby. She was 17, a senior in high school. She was already 15 weeks along. She had already driven herself two hours to the closest Planned Parenthood after school one day while Patricia thought she was at track practice. She’d already had her first ultrasound, already seen Ruby’s little heartbeat flickering on the monitor, had already fallen in love with her. Patricia had found the pregnancy test in the bottom of Sam’s nightstand drawer where she’d stashed it. She’d suspected Sam was hiding something, but she’d assumed it was drugs. She’d been firm. Get rid of it. Or else. Sam started packing her bags that night. 

So yeah, she thinks. It makes sense.

Sam nods at Alex. “Complete.”

“I had convinced myself I could compromise... you know? But I just... I was never gonna get over it,” Alex explains, her eyes filled with pain.

Sam’s face falls at the sight. She’s never seen Alex like this, so vulnerable and open, he so heart bleeding right in front of her. 

“Oh, Alex. Compromise is meeting in the middle. Not having kids isn’t a compromise. That’s sacrificing an entire part of yourself.”

“And now, spending time with you, Sam... With you and Ruby... I mean, she’s such a great kid. This just came out of left field. And it’s... I wasn’t prepared for this. For you.”

Sam looks away and nods regretfully. 

“It’s too much. I get that.”

“I know that Ruby is the most important thing in the world to you. And I don’t want to be the one to ruin this. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“It’s okay, really,” Sam says, despite the tightness in her chest. “I appreciate your honesty. I mean, I’d rather know now if you don’t see this going anywhere...”

“No, Sam. That’s the thing.”

Sam looks up expectantly, her eyes narrowed curiously. 

“It’s that I do... see it going...a lot of places,” Alex explains slowly. “And that terrifies me. Because I am still broken and messy and angry, and it’s not your job to fix that. And I don’t want to ruin my chance at getting this right...with you.”

Sam’s feels her heart starting to race, the rapid beat making her feel dizzy and faint, wondering if she heard Alex right. That Alex wants this, wants her. 

“Oh. Wow,” Sam breathes. 

“What?” 

“I totally thought you brought me here so you could soften the blow. I mean, after I realized it wasn’t to tell me I was dying. I thought it was, you know, to let me down easy. I guess you still kind of are... This is still a no, huh?” Sam rambles nervously. “I should shut up about now,” Sam adds, looking away and shaking her head at herself.

She stills when she feels a touch on her hand and looks down to see Alex’s hand reaching across the table. Her hands are a little cold, but Sam instantly relaxes. 

Sam looks up to meet Alex’s warm, brown eyes staring into her. 

“I just need time, Sam. Is that okay?”

Sam smiles, looks away to catch her breath, nodding. “Of course.” She finally returns her gaze to Alex. Their eyes meet. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A slight smile forms at the corner of Alex’s mouth, and Sam intertwines her fingers tightly with Alex’s.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out! Can’t thank you all enough for the sweet comments! Definitely helps keep me motivated to keep writing to hear people are enjoying it. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I got a query about taking prompts. I’m never been asked, but I’d be willing to give it a shot. If you have one, find me over on tumblr as augustrain3.
> 
> —

It’s half past 8 when they emerge from the Lexington and out onto the city streets. It’s quieter now, the buzz of 9-to-5ers has died down, and the lights from the skyscrapers illuminate their figures with a fluorescent glow. There is a slight chill to the air, but nothing like the kind of winters Sam experienced in Central City. Ruby still tells her it doesn’t feel quite like Christmas without snow, and she has to agree. But this winter evening, even though there are no snowflakes falling from the sky, no coat of white blanketing the city, the night still feels like magic.

When Sam and Alex reach the corner, their bodies slow and turn towards each other. 

“Where’d you park?” Alex asks. 

Her hands are shoved into her pockets. Sam wants to reach out and take one, but she’s trying to follow Alex’s lead. She needs time. She wants to take things slow. She wants to get this right. It’s hard to argue with that. 

It all still feels so surreal anyway. And besides, her entire body is sparking; one touch and she might combust. 

“Oh, it’s okay. I’m just down Franklin,” Sam answers, glancing down the street.

“Really. You’re gonna walk to your car alone at night when you have the option of protection from a federal agent?” Alex counters, cocking her head to one side. 

“Wait, are you armed? Right now?” Sam asks in bated interest. 

“Why?” Alex asks nervously, a look of guilt painted across her face. “Does that- does that make you uncomfortable?”

Sam’s eyes move over Alex Danvers, over her angled jaw and her long neck, her leather jacket hanging over her lean but muscular frame, knowing somewhere on her body is a firearm that Alex knows exactly how to use. 

She swallows hard. 

“That’s not exactly the word I would use.”

Alex shifts her weight sheepishly, and for the first time, Sam feels like Alex is more nervous than she is, and Sam feels herself fall a little harder.

“I could leave it next time if it bothers you,” Alex offers. 

Sam smirks. “Don’t you dare.” 

Their eyes catch. Alex bites her lip. Her gaze moves over Sam’s face. Sam feels her cheeks flush. 

After a long beat, Sam reaches out and clips the waist of Alex’s jeans with her fingers, her thumb grazing the wide leather belt. She pulls slightly, tugging Alex’s body towards her ever so slightly. 

“Come on. Walk me to my car.” Sam turns and gestures with her body down the street before starting towards her car.

After a couple paces, Alex catches her again, and they fall into step together. They remain silent for a stretch of pavement. Sam feels the back of her hand graze the back of Alex’s as they walk, and it sends a rush through her.

“How are you feeling?” Alex finally asks, breaking the silence. 

“No more blackouts, if that’s what you mean. Did you come up with any other explanations?”

“I think I need to see you when it happens again, if it happens again. I thought about a lapel camera or a tracking device, but then I realized that sounded kind of creepy.”

“Just a little,” Sam replies with a small laugh.

Sam slows as they reach her vehicle, parked parallel along the one way downtown street. 

“This is me,” she says as she unlocks the silver Cadillac with her remote and opens the driver door to place her bag inside. She turns back, leans her back against the side door so she’s facing Alex. 

“I don’t want you to spend your time worrying about this though.”

“I think we’re a little past that now, Sam. I’m gonna worry. Is that okay with you?”

Sam nods, looks down. “It could take some getting used to.”

Sam reaches up and runs her fingers down the open edge of Alex’s leather jacket, feeling the softness of the fabric, just barely sensing the heat radiating from Alex’s body. It takes all of her self-restraint to keep her hand from snaking around Alex’s waist and pulling their bodies close. Sam does all she can to suppress the desire to melt into her, to curve her body to fit the arcs and bends of Alex’s, to get so close she can breathe her in.

Instead, she finds words to break the silence. 

“So where do you keep it?”

Alex raises her eyebrows, perplexed. 

“Your gun,” Sam clarifies. 

“If I show you, it doesn’t exactly count as concealed anymore,” Alex teases. “I gotta have a few secrets.”

“Why do I have the feeling you have a lot more than that?” 

Alex looks like she’s searching for a reply, when Sam interrupts.

“Thank you for the security detail, Agent Danvers.”

The edge of Alex’s mouth curls into a smile. “My pleasure.”

“Goodnight. Alex,” Sam adds, savoring the way her name rolls of her tongue. 

“G’night, Sam.”

—

Alex waits until Sam’s car disappears from view before she turns down the street towards her SUV parked 2 blocks over. 

Her boots click on the cement as she walks. There is a momentum in her step that she hasn’t felt in months. She takes a deep breath, the cold air filling her lungs. 

She feels electric, like she can sense the energy of every cell in her body, like every atom has been excited to a new state. 

She realizes she had almost forgotten what it’s like to feel alive. 

—

When Sam pulls into the driveway of her house, she’s greeted by Mrs. Queller, standing expectantly in the doorway. She’s an older woman, late 50s, with short frizzy hair and a slight scowl.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Sam tells her as she sprints up the driveway to the front door, reaching into her purse for cash. 

“Homework is done, but she wouldn’t go to bed until you were home,” the woman replies as she takes the money from Sam. 

“Thank you.”

“What are you doing up still?” Sam asks as she leans over Ruby from behind, wrapping her arms around her and placing a kiss on her temple. 

“How did your meeting go?” Ruby replies, lifting her legs onto the couch so she can turn and face her mother. 

“Well. Surprisingly well,” she says, thinking of Alex’s face, of her little half smile, of the touch of her hand, of the electricity that surged between them. “I have a good feeling about things.”

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

Sam smile. “Yeah? You want a sleepover?”

“Can we?” Ruby pleads. 

“As long as you don’t hog the covers and snore like a bear,” Sam replies, ruffling the top of her daughter’s head before leaning down to Ruby’s level, a huge grin on her face, and releasing a loud fake snore in her daughter’s ear.

Ruby bursts into laughter. “I don’t snore!”

“Your words against mine, kiddo,” Sam teases, and Ruby shakes her head. “Go get your PJs on before I change my mind.”

Ruby jumps off the couch and sprints up the stairs, leaving Sam alone with her thoughts. She returns to the kitchen where she finds a leftover pizza box, which she places in the fridge. 

Sam makes her way upstairs moments later and crosses the hallway to her room. Ruby is curled up in her bed, book in hand, reading.

Sam’s embarrassed to admit it’s been years since she’s slept beside someone besides her daughter. Sure she’d shared a bed, but always at another’s place and she’d always come home after. But falling asleep beside someone, curling into another, feeling their warmth next to her... it’s been forever. And she wonders if maybe, just maybe, that could finally change. 

Sam moves to the attached bathroom to change her clothes and wash her face. She stops in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection, noting the faint start of lines at the edges of her eyes. Stress lines from years of doing this all, raising a kid, getting through school, building a career, all on her own, knowing her own wants have always fallen by the wayside over the years. 

She thinks of Alex, how it felt tonight with her, the way she feels herself fragment whenever Alex looks at her... and she can’t remember ever wanting something, someone, quite this much. It’s terrifying and thrilling all at once. She wonders if she’s letting her heart open too easily, letting herself fall too hard too fast, if maybe she’s walking herself out over a minefield.

She takes a deep breath and shakes her head and tells herself to, for once, stop worrying so much.

—

It’s early Sunday evening, and Alex is picking up a take out order at Peking Kitchen before heading to Kara’s. They’ve barely had time to connect in the last few weeks, not since their last showdown with Reign, not since everything happened with Sam. Everything and nothing, she thinks. She had only briefly considered filling Kara in, before talking herself out of it. Besides, telling would give this weight that Alex isn’t quite ready for. 

“Alex!”

Alex looks up when she hears the voice calling out for her. She turns to see Ruby and Sam seated in a booth a few feet away eating lo mein and kung pao chicken. It was Ruby’s voice, but her eyes meet Sam’s and she’s greeted with a small smile. Alex notices that Sam’s hair is pulled back into a low ponytail away from her face. She’s dressed down in jeans and an oversized wool sweater. She looks relaxed, at ease, and Alex is glad to see it. Despite Sam telling her the other night that she’s not had another black out, it has still been in Alex’s mind, keeping her up at night, combing the pages of medical journals. 

Alex crosses to them. 

“Hey!” Alex says with a smile, squeezing Ruby’s shoulder affectionately. “How’s my favorite little gemstone?”

“Good! Are you getting dinner?”

“I am.”

“Can you join us?” Ruby asks before turning to Sam. “Mom, can Alex join us? Pretty please?”

Sam laughs, her gaze going from Ruby and up to Alex.

“Oh I wish I could, hun,” Alex replies, before Sam has a chance. “But I’ve got a sisters night planned. And I have to get these pot stickers to Kara pronto before she turns into a hangry monster,” Alex adds, holding up a giant paper bag, packed tightly with boxes and boxes of pan fried dumplings. 

Sam’s eyes take in the bag. 

“Wow, how many pot stickers can one girl eat?”

“You have no idea,” Alex tells her with a laugh. Her gaze then returns to Ruby. “But maybe next time? If your mom’s okay with that?

“Mom?”

Sam’s nods. “Of course.”

“Good,” Alex replies, before leaning over and giving Ruby a squeeze. “Catch you on the flip side?” 

Ruby nods in agreement. 

Alex turns back to Sam. “It’s good seeing you, Sam.”

Their eyes linger, as they exchange a knowing glance. Alex feels a sensation of time slowing, and she feels her heart pounding in her chest. 

“You too, Alex.”

—

“Thank god, I thought you’d never get here.” Kara announces when Alex finally arrives, pot stickers in hand. 

Alex plops the bag on the counter and sets a six pack from her other hand down beside it. “I decided to walk. Have you see it outside? It’s gorgeous out,” she says cheerfully as she reaches into Kara’s top drawer, pulls out a bottle opener and uncaps one. 

“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my sister?” Kara asks, eyeing her suspiciously. 

“What? Can’t I just be having a good day?”

“I guess. But I thought we were getting together to mope,” Kara replies, a little disappointed. “You know? Stuff our faces, drink some beer-“

“You don’t even drink beer, Kara.”

“Watch you drink beer. Have an ugly cry to the tune of ‘The Break-up.’”

Alex shrugs. “Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf,” she offers as an explanation, instead of the real one, the one where she tells Kara that her heart’s been pounding, since her unexpected sighting of Sam Arias. 

Kara nods and takes a beer that Alex knows very well she won’t drink. “Well I’ll cheers to that,” Kara says, lifting the bottle high. “May all the leaves be turned.”

Their bottles clink. Alex feels a little guilty for keeping this from her sister, but at the same time, she’s still making sense of it all herself. 

—

Sam sighs as she sets down a stack of papers on her desk and glances at the clock. It’s Monday afternoon. The day is racing by, which most would consider a good thing, but not when you have an unending list of tasks and never enough hours, Sam thinks.

“Shit,” she mutters shaking her head. She rubs her forehead in frustration, knowing the hours today are not adding up to her getting home anytime soon. 

Reluctantly, desperately, she reaches for her cell phone. She pulls up the number, and it rings twice before she hears Alex’s voice. 

“Sam, hey.” Alex’s voice is warm, and Sam can’t help but love hearing her say her name. 

“So I hate to ask, and I wouldn’t if it wasn’t an emergency,” Sam starts, frenzied and a little frantic, “but is there any chance you might be free to pick up Ruby from practice tonight, and keep an eye on her this evening? I have quarterly reports to catch up on and a conference call that could last ages, and my babysitter has her weekly bunco game. I didn’t even know people still play that. Like is that even a real thing or is it just an excuse for old ladies to drink?”

Sam hears Alex’s laugh, and it feels good. 

“Maybe both. And yes, absolutely.”

“Really? You’re not working?” 

“I happen to have the night off. Just text me the address.”

Sam breathes a sigh of relief.

“You keep saving my life, Alex. Thank you.”

—

It’s half past 4 when Sam hears a sharp rasp on her door, and she wonders begrudgingly what other task her assistant is going to lay on her desk. She’s surprised when looks up to see Alex in her doorway instead. 

“Double shot almond milk latte? Any takers?” Alex offers, holding up a to-go cup in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. “Just thought I’d stop by before I went to get Rubes. Sounded like you have a long evening ahead and might need some fuel.”

Sam smiles and feels the tension in her body fade. She comes out from behind her desk and meets Alex around the front. 

“I can’t believe you.” Sam reaches out and takes the cup from Alex’s hand, the exact drink she’d ordered after the MRI, that Sam can’t believe she remembers. “You should know that this is exactly what I need,” Sam says gratefully, taking a sip.

“So, is this okay?” Alex asks hesitatingly, shifting her weight. 

Sam shakes her head in confusion. “Is what okay?”

Alex shrugs nervously. “I didn’t know if it was intrusive, showing up at your place of work.”

“You came with coffee, there is nothing intrusive about that,” Sam reassures. 

Alex smiles, a broad dopey grin. “There’s a chocolate croissant too,” she adds, showing the bag to Sam before setting it on the desk. 

“You already know the way to my heart,” Sam replies quickly, before she’s able to stop herself. Her face flushes with embarrassment. “I just mean...” She shakes her head. Her eyes meet Alex’s, who is smiling, the corner of her mouth turned up, her eyes bright, and Sam feels a flutter in her stomach.

So Sam finally forces her eyes away. “So what adventures do you have planned tonight with your biggest fan?”

Alex chuckles. “Biggest fan, huh? I thought maybe there would have been some competition for that title,” she teases. 

“I assure you it was a fiercely contested battle, but that kid doesn’t play around.”

“Hm, wonder where she gets that,” Alex replies playfully. 

Alex is only inches away, but Sam wants her closer. It would be so easy to reach for her and close the space. But no, she reminds herself, there is nothing about taking it slow that involves ravishing a woman on top of your desk in your office in the middle of the work day. 

“Well, thank you. For the coffee. For everything,” she says instead.

“It’s nothing,” Alex replies nonchalantly, with a slight shrug. 

“It’s not,” Sam insists, this eyes meeting. “I’ll see you tonight?”

Alex nods.

—

“So the key is keeping your thumb bent below your knuckles,” Alex explains. 

She and Ruby are standing in the middle of Grand Park in downtown National City shortly after chowing down on tacos followed by gelato. Ruby is still in her Nikes and mesh shorts from basketball practice. 

“If you put your thumb inside your fist, it’s definitely gonna break,” Alex continues. 

“Like this?” Ruby asks, lifting her fist excitedly to show Alex. 

“Yep, you got it. Want to give it a try?” Alex asks, lifting her own open palm into the air. “Get me right here.”

“I can’t hit you, Alex.”

“What? You think I can’t take it?”

Ruby laughs before winding up and placing a shot squarely in Alex’s palm.

Alex reels back, grasping her own hand. “Ow! Oh my god, I think you broke my hand,” she exclaims.

Ruby’s eyes widen in panic momentarily before Alex reveals a wide grin. 

“Just kidding.”

Ruby laughs again. 

“I think you got it, kid. Nobody’s gonna mess with Ruby Arias,” Alex says with a reassuring hand on her shoulder, as they both start towards a nearby bench. 

“Thanks, Alex.”

They sit down side by side on the park bench. The sun is starting to go down, flashing a warm glow off the metal of the skyscrapers. 

“My pleasure.”

“What’s it like? Being, like, a secret agent. Do you ever get scared?”

Alex nods. “Sometimes. But then I remember that I’m helping people. That it’s my job to protect people who are in danger, and that gives me courage.”

Ruby nods then looks away, forlorn. “I wish my mom did something that cool.”

“Come on,” Alex says nudging Ruby’s arm with her elbow. “L-Corp does all kinds of cool stuff. Did you know they research how to cure cancer? And they create nanotechnology? And this one is top secret,” she says, leaning in and lowering her voice to a whisper, “but did you know some of the weapons we use were developed by L-Corp? And your mom is the one in charge of all that. And not only does she handle all that, but she is also raising a pretty cool little human at the same time. So she’s pretty amazing if you ask me.”

Even as she says it, Alex can’t even imagine doing all that Sam has accomplished on her own. Alex has tried handled so much by herself for so many years, refusing to ask for help, pushing people away, but it hasn’t always gone well. From getting kicked out of graduate school, nearly losing her apartment when she got behind on rent, getting arrested and bailed out by J’onn, she’d definitely fallen apart more than a few times, made more than her fair share of mistakes. At the end of the day, her errors in judgement only made things cave in on her. Yet with a child, there’s no room for error, no margin for mistakes, and Alex knows Sam must be stronger than Ruby or probably anyone will ever realize to have made it where she has. 

Alex nudges Ruby. “What do you say we head back to my place and start season two of Stranger Things?” 

“Yes!” 

“It’s even better than the first.”

“No way!”

—

It’s just after eight when Alex’s phone rings. She’s on the couch in her apartment with Ruby, who is so engrossed in the show, she doesn’t even look away from the screen when the cell phone alerts. 

Alex stands and moves toward the kitchen to find a more quiet spot.

“Sam, hey, you finished at work?”

“Almost,” Sam says, and Alex can hear the stress in her voice. “I know I said I’d be off by now, but I have another hour of work to get done. I was thinking you could drop Ruby here?”

Alex glanced over at Ruby. “You know what? Why don’t I just take Ruby home and get her into bed?”

“Seriously?” Sam sounds incredulous, and Alex feels just a twinge of sadness as she realizes that Sam’s probably never had help that she didn’t have to pay for. 

“I mean, she’s 12,” Alex says with a laugh. “I think she does most of the work herself.”

“You’re amazing, you know that? Ruby has keys. Please help yourself to anything in the fridge, including the wine fridge. And I should be there by 10.”

“I’ll see you there.”

—

Alex turns her SUV onto Somerset Drive, and it’s clear she’s entered a very different, very suburban part of National City. The streets are quiet, the yards manicured, the houses stately. 

“That’s us,” Ruby says, pointing towards a beautiful white two-story home that’s partly illuminated by the street lights. 

Wow, Alex thinks. I mean, she knew Sam must do well as a CFO, but seeing her place really solidifies it. 

Alex pulls into the driveway and parks, and the two make their way towards the entrance. Ruby unlocks the heavy wood front door and ushers Alex inside. 

“Welcome to Casa Arias,” Ruby announces excitedly.

Alex steps inside, and her eyes scan the space. It’s spacious, the decor simple and tasteful. Right in front is a dark wood staircase leading upstairs, and through the foyer ahead, she can catch a glimpse of the kitchen and living room. 

“Can we watch another episode?” Ruby asks, eyes bright. 

“You were supposed to be in bed half an hour ago,” Alex says with an astonished laugh. “If your mom comes home and finds you watching tv, you and I are not gonna be allowed to hang out anymore, ok?”

“Okay...” Ruby laments. 

“Give me a hug.”

Ruby lifts her arms and wraps them around Alex’s waist. Alex pulls her in tight and plants a kiss on the top of her head.

“Goodnight, hun,” Alex tells before releasing her grasp. “I’ll be down here if you need anything.”

“Thanks. Today was really fun, Alex.”

“I thought so too.”

Ruby disappears up the stairs, and Alex moves towards the living room slowly. Something about being in Sam’s home without her there feels invasive, even if she was invited. 

Adorning the walls are collages of photos of Sam with Ruby, all the way from a chubby baby to a sprawling toddler to more recent ones that must be within the last year. Sam is beaming in each and every one. In the oldest ones, Sam can’t be more than 18 or 19. Alex can’t help but notice that Sam looks like a baby herself in them. 

Alex pauses at the entrance to the kitchen as she comes across a narrow space of wall that’s painted black. On it are hash marks for Ruby’s growth over the years. The other side is a list of bucket list goals. 

Black belt.  
Sailing.  
Skydive.  
New York City.  
Disneyland.  
Paris.

Alex wonders if it’s all Ruby’s or if some of Sam’s dreams made the list. She wonders how many things Sam’s given up to give Ruby this life. To put a roof over her head and clothes on her body. To give her safety and stability no matter the cost.

It’s clear from the photographs that it’s been Sam and Ruby against the world for quite some time. It hits Alex what she’s potentially entering into, that she’s walking into something sacred. 

She gives herself a mental reminder to tread carefully, to treat this delicately, to do this right. 

Sam deserves that. 

—

It’s just after ten when Sam pulls the Cadillac into the driveway beside Alex’s SUV. 

She lingers for a moment with the car off. She thinks about how good it feels to have Alex Danvers waiting for her at home, and it hits her what Alex meant when she said she was terrified.

She didn’t know she could want something, someone, quite this much, didn’t realize that she could put her heart out on her sleeve, where it was free to be broken. She forgot that falling for someone this hard could feel like dangling your heart out an open window and hoping someone will be there to catch it. 

Sam unlocks the door and steps into the foyer. The house is dim, just a small lamp illuminating the living room and the glow of the television. She can hear the low hum of television voices, but it’s otherwise quiet. 

She weaves through the hallway and sets her bag down on the kitchen counter. She sees Alex’s figure seated on the couch. 

Alex turns her head just as Sam approaches and greets her with a small smile.

“Hey.”

Alex is curled up on the brown suede sofa, a blanket drawn up over her legs. There’s a bottle of Pinot noir open on the coffee table, and Sam smiles. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Alex says, motioning to the bottle. “I took you up on your offer.”

“Only if I can help you finish the bottle,” Sam says, as she moves around the couch and collapses in exhaustion next to Alex. 

“Already grabbed you a glass,” Alex tells her, holding the empty one up proudly.

Sam takes it from her hand, and Alex reaches for the bottle, tilting it over the glass and giving a heavy handed pour. 

“Whoa there!” Sam says with a laugh, her other hand motioning to slow down. 

“I’ve got to drive home. You’re just going to bed,” Alex argues, laughing. 

“Yeah, but I have to make good choices until then,” Sam exclaims, before she realizes what’s escaped her lips. She feels her face redden. Alex’s eyes are wide with amusement. “Wow, did I just say that out loud?”

“You did, yeah.”

Their eyes meet and hold on each other. Alex is doing that thing again with her lip, and Sam can’t take her eyes off of her. She wants to pull her closer. Grab her hand and lead her upstairs. Fall into bed. Remember the taste of her lips. Discover the feel of her skin. Fall asleep wrapped around her. 

Slow slow slow, she reminds herself again. 

Sam forces her line of sight back to the television.

“God, I used to love this show.”

“Me too. Can you believe our shows are now on Nic at Night?”

“A true sign of aging. I was younger than Ruby when I used to watch this. Did she give you any problems tonight?”

“Perfect angel. You’ve raised a pretty great kid.”

“Well, trust me, she’s not always a perfect angel,” Sam counters. 

“Pretty close.”

A long silence passes. 

“Think you would ever have another?” Alex finally asks, breaking the silence. Her voice is hesitant and the implication of her question makes Sam freeze. “I just mean, you clearly make pretty good ones,” Alex adds, as if she’s trying to lighten the weight of her words.

“Do I have to carry them?” Sam jokes playfully, trying to deflect. “I’m joking. Mostly... God, for a long time, it was hard to fathom loving anything as much as her, but I’d always thought maybe I’d adopt, ‘cause, you know.”

Alex smiles. “Me too. You know, cause of Kara.”

Sam nods. “But then I never met anyone to do it with anyways, and I wasn’t going to try to raise two kids on my own when one is hard enough.”

“I’m amazed at how you do it. I think single moms are basically superheroes.”

“I don’t know about that.” 

“Well, I saw my mom do it. Not always, but after we lost my dad... And Kara and I did not make it easy for her. But at least we were already teenagers.”

Sam’s taken aback by Alex’s words. She scans Alex’s face and sees a flicker of pain that Alex seems to be trying to keep down at the recollection of the memory. 

“I didn’t know. I’m so sorry...” Sam tells her sympathetically. “Well, she clearly did something right.”

Alex narrows her eyes suspiciously. “I don’t know. You have met us, right?”

Sam releases a small laugh. Her eyes glance back to the television as she considers the question again. 

She had stopped imagining another child would ever be in the realm of possibility. Besides, Ruby was closer to leaving home than not at this point, and it had been a while since she had thought she might ever meet someone who would want that, so she’d all but discarded the thought. 

But maybe she had given up too quickly. Maybe someone would want that. Maybe with the right person... if she was out there... 

If maybe, just maybe, she’s right in front of her. 

Sam finally turns back to Alex. Nervous. Cautious. Heart racing.

“I think I would...have another... And gosh, Ruby would be such a great big sister.”

“She really would.”

Sam nods, pensive, contemplative. They both turn back to the television. A few moments pass by before Sam finally lifts her eyes to Alex again. 

“Alex?”

Alex turns. “Hm?”

“You’re gonna be a great mom. I’m glad you didn’t let yourself give that up.”

The corner of Alex’s mouth curves into a small shy smile.

“Me too.”

—

Later, when the night is no longer young and the bottle is nearly empty, Sam walks Alex to the front door. Sam’s third glass of wine sat half empty on the coffee table. Alex had risen from the couch first and had reached her hand out to Sam to pull her up to her feet. Their fingers had remained loosely entwined as they made their way towards the front door. Sam had felt a little unsteady on her feet, and while she could have told herself all she wanted that it was the wine, she had known too well that it wasn’t.

The last hour, they’d spent in conversation. They had talked about their pasts. About Midvale and Oak Park. About Seattle and Central City. She had learned that Alex is high up in the bureau, not because she said so, but in the way Alex talks about her agents. She learns that the responsibility on Alex’s shoulders is tremendous, but that she’s used to carrying the weight of the world around on her back. That Alex is tough and she’s serious and she’s earnest, but underneath all that, she’s selfless and self-effacing. That when her guard comes down, she’s witty and clever and maybe a bit of a dork. That Alex is embarrassed by compliments, that her body tenses and she’ll laugh nervously, that she will averts her eyes and her hair will fall just ever so slightly into her face, in a way that makes Sam want to praise her relentlessly.

Now, they are lingering in the doorway, the front door open, Alex straddling the threshold between the warmth of Sam’s house and the chill outside. Their fingertips are still just barely touching, but Sam feels pure electricity running between them. 

Sam doesn’t want her to go, doesn’t want the night to end. 

“So can I take you to lunch?” Sam asks. “To thank you? And don’t give me this garbage about how it’s not necessary-“

“Yes.”

“Yes? Okay, great,” Sam replies, relieved. “How’s Wednesday at noon? At The Alcove?”

“I’ll be there.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for reading and especially everyone who left a comment. This one took me a while, but hope it was worth the wait. Also as an FYI, this all still takes place between 3x12 and 3x13. Still (mostly) canon based.
> 
> —

Sam knocks on Ruby’s half-open bedroom door and then peaks inside. It’s Wednesday morning. Ruby is scrambling around collecting books into her backpack. 

“Ruby, come on, sweetie. You’re gonna be late for school.”

“Coming!”

Sam makes her way downstairs, her laptop tucked in her shoulder bag. The night before, after changing into pajamas and crawling into bed, she had opened her laptop to get through a few more emails, but she couldn’t focus. The exhaustion she’s been fighting lately set in, and her mind kept drifting until she eventually gave in to sleep, closed the laptop and pulled the sheets over her body. 

She had slept through her alarm that morning, and she had muttered a few obscenities when she’d realized it before waking Ruby in a fury.

Now, downstairs, Sam pops an eggo in the toaster and grabs an iced coffee drink from the fridge for herself. 

A few minutes later, Ruby arrives, and Sam hands her the eggo wrapped in a paper towel. 

“You get a dry eggo because we’re late.”

“Ugghhh,” Ruby whines, taking it reluctantly. 

“Ok, get your shoes on. We gotta go!”

Ruby sprints towards the front door, Sam following close behind, where she grabs a pair of converse and sits down on the staircase to put them on. Sam stands over her. She glances at her cell. If Ruby is late again, she’s going to hear it from the principal. She opens her email and sees no less than 40 new emails since she went to bed the night before. She sighs and thinks to herself how it never ends. 

“Mom?”

“Yes, baby,” Sam answers without looking up from her email. 

“Do you like Alex?”

“Of course, sweetie. She’s a great friend,” Sam replies distractedly, engrossed in an message about profit margins. 

“I mean, _like her_ like her.”

Sam’s eyes widen in surprise. She finally looks away from her cell, dropping it to her side, and looks up to her daughter. She reminds herself to never cease to be surprised by her daughter’s perceptiveness. 

“Where’d you get that idea?” Sam asks cautiously. 

“I see how you look at her,” Ruby replies with a smirk. 

Sam releases a shocked laugh. “And how is that?”

“You get all googly eyed. You know. Like this,” Ruby tells her, opening her eyes twice as big, putting a dreamy star-struck look on her face, and resting her chin on her fist. 

Sam chuckles. “Oh, is that right?”

“Yep!” Ruby says, rising to her feet. 

“I’ll show you googly eyes.” Sam opens her eyes extra wide and gets close to Ruby’s face with a goofy exaggerated version of Ruby’s impression. 

“Ah! That’s creepy!” Ruby says, laughing.  
Sam ruffles Ruby’s hair. 

“Ok, slow poke, let’s rock and roll before we both get pulled into the principal’s office.”

Ruby pulls her backpack over her shoulder as Sam opens the front door. 

“Mom?”

Sam pauses and turns back to her daughter. 

“Yeah?”

Ruby is grinning. 

“I think she likes you too,” Ruby tells her before stepping through the door and jogging towards the car. 

Sam pauses momentarily before closing the door behind them. As she turns the key in the lock, she wonders what Alex said to ever give Ruby that idea. As she makes her way to the car, she finds herself trying to hide her own smile that is forming. 

—

Twenty minutes later, Sam pulls the Cadillac up to the drop off line at the middle school. Ruby’s been chatting about science projects and basketball practice, and Sam feels guilty for being distracted, but she can’t stop thinking back to what Ruby had said. She can’t stop wondering about her and Alex and what this is and where it’s going and if she is ready to make this leap off a cliff and let someone into her life, into their life. 

But the truth, she realizes, is that her heart has already decided that. 

“Ruby, honey?”

Ruby looks up expectantly. 

“How would you feel if Alex was around a bit more? If... if she started spending some more with us?”

“Seriously?!” Ruby is beaming so much, it makes Sam laugh. “Yes! I would love that. Will you invite her to my basketball game tomorrow?”

“Sure, baby,” Sam replies as Ruby jumps out of the car and slams the door shut, and she laughs again, wondering which of them is actually happier about the development. 

—

It’s just past noon, and Alex is standing in the entryway of The Alcove. The buzz of suits filtering in and out of their lunch breaks echoes in the small space. She’s wringing her hands, and she’s not sure why she’s feeling nervous. 

An hour ago, she’d been pacing the DEO. It’s not a date, she had reminded herself. It’s lunch. It’s a thank you.

Should she get there early? she’d wondered. Will that look weird? That’s ridiculous. Sam wouldn’t even know unless she got there early. Maybe she should go early to have a drink. No, then what if Sam is early. Drinking before noon can’t leave a good impression. 

She had ended up arriving just before noon, but now the clock had crept well past and was moving towards 12:15, and there was still no sign of Sam. 

Alex pulls out her phone and decides to send a casual text.

Just wanted to make sure I have the right time and place. The Alcove on 8th, right?

When it goes unanswered, she decides to call. It rings several times and then goes to Sam’s voicemail. She doesn’t leave a message.

She wonders if maybe Sam got stuck in traffic or caught up at work, tells herself she’s just running late, but her mind can’t help but wonder if it’s happened again. If Sam’s had another black out. Sam had said that they’d seemed to have ceased, but maybe it wasn’t over.

Alex sends another text before calling again. And again. All with no answer. 

She tries to tell herself not to worry. 

It’s probably nothing. But what if it’s not?

—

It’s just before one o’clock when Alex steps into the imposing steel and glass lobby of L-Corp. She flashes her badge at security and is waved back to the elevators. 

She lingers in the middle of opposite walls of steel doors, shifting her weight, when finally, an elevator dings. 

“Alex?” a voice calls out from behind her. 

Alex spins to see Lena Luthor, dressed in a sleek black suit, stepping off the elevator. 

“Oh, Lena. Hi.”

“Is everything okay?” Lena’s expression is serious.

“Of course, what do you mean?”

“Not that I mind your visits, but in the past, when the bureau stops by, it’s never good.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. I’m just here to see Sam...” Alex explains, her voice trailing off as she realizes that she’s nowhere near ready to explain the particulars of why she’s visitinf Sam or what she and Sam even are. “I’ve been... looking into her blackouts. I just wanted to check in.”

Lena raises her brow. “With lunch I see,” Lena replies, eyeing the bag of take out in Alex’s hand. 

“Oh, this? This is just...” Alex fidgets. “It’s for me, it was on the way.”

“Okay then.”

Lena eyes her suspiciously. Another elevator dings open, and Lena’s gaze moves to the open doors and then back to Alex.

“42nd floor,” Lena adds, indicating Sam’s office. 

“Thanks,” Alex mutters, giving an awkward polite wave goodbye then moving to the open elevator. 

—

There are two raps on the door, and Sam doesn’t even look up. 

“Come in,” she calls out in annoyance, her attention still deep in a twenty page contract.

She hears the door swing open.

“Hey.”

The familiar voice immediately draws Sam’s attention, and her head snaps up. 

In the doorway is Alex. She’s dressed in a casual navy blue button down and jeans. She’s wearing brown suede ankle boots. Her auburn hair is smooth, framing her face. Sam feels her heart skip a beat at the sight of her. 

“Alex, what are you...” Sam starts, confused, as she fumbles through a haphazard stack of papers to find her cell. It’s only then that she notices both the time, 1:03pm, and the three missed calls and two texts from Alex. 

“Oh my god, I’m the worst,” Sam says, after the realization sets in, rubbing her forehead and shaking her head. “I had a board meeting this morning, the members want to change the terms of the latest acquisition, but the contract’s already signed, so I’ve been on the phone all morning trying to renegotiate with the the world’s biggest asshole. And well, I completely lost track of time. I am so sorry.”

“You’re running a multibillion dollar Fortune 500 company, Sam. You’ve got a good excuse.”

“How are you so understanding?”

“Do you remember what I do for a living? Not exactly predictable.”

“Right.”

“Do you have a few minutes?”

“Yes, yes.” Sam steps out from behind the curved white desk. “This day has been a literal nightmare, but my next call’s not for... fifty-five minutes.”

“I didn’t know what you liked so I got options,” Alex says, holding up the bag of takeout. 

Sam shakes her head in disbelief. “You really are something else, Alex Danvers.” 

Sam motions over to the couch opposite her desk for Alex to sit. 

“What do you mean?” Alex asks as she sets down the bag and takes a seat, turning her body and drawing her knee up to face Sam, who sits down beside her. 

“I mean, I stand you up, and you bring me lunch.”

“I can’t say I didn’t have ulterior motives,” Alex says cautiously. 

Sam’s eyes narrow in response. 

Alex pauses before finally continuing. “When you didn’t show, I started worrying...”

Sam nods. “That I’d had another black out.”

“Yeah...”

“Nope, I’m just a total disaster all on my own. So don’t say you haven’t been warned.”

“I’ve dealt with terrorist attacks and more than one assassination attempts, including my own, so if this is what you call a disaster, I think I can handle it,” Alex says with a laugh. 

“Oh, that’s nice,” Sam replies sarcastically. “So now if you’re the one who doesn’t show up to lunch, I’m going to think you’re dead.”

“At least you’ll know I haven’t stood you up?” Alex suggests with a smirk.

Sam rolls her eyes playfully. “Comforting.”

—

Twenty-five minutes later, they’ve finished eating. Sam and Alex are still seated side by side on the couch, bodies turned to face each other. Alex’s elbow rests on the back of the leather sofa, her chin on her hand. Sam’s suit jacket is off, revealing the pale blue sleeveless silk blouse she had on underneath. 

The conversation has been light. Sam’s been laughing more than she has in a while, and she thinks how this is exactly what she needed today. She thinks that maybe she could get used to this. 

“I’ve been thinking...” Sam starts after a brief lull, her tone shifting to more serious. “Maybe this memory loss really was just me working myself into the ground. I’ve been so tired, like, ‘can’t sleep enough hours’ tired. And god knows, I’ve been stressed.”

“Sounds pretty plausible from what I’ve seen so far. I think maybe someone could use a vacation?”

“Oh god, a vacation? What is that even?” Sam quips. 

“I’ve only really ever heard of them. But they sound nice.”

“Did you know there are no vacations when you have a kid? They’re just trips.”

Alex laughs. “Well, perhaps Ruby is old enough now for you to have one without her?”

“Hm,” Sam considers. “I like your thinking.”

“Maybe go somewhere on the coast? Sip some wine?”

“Mmm, tell me more.”

“Fresh oysters? Full service spa?”

“Throw in a beautiful woman, and that’s the stuff of dreams.”

Alex grimaces playfully. “Well, hate to disappoint, but you might just have to settle for me,” she teases. 

“Right, ‘cause you’re just hideous, Alex,” Sam replies sarcastically. “Please. You know I turn into a blathering idiot whenever you look at me like you do.”

Alex releases an amused laugh. “Look at you how?”

Alex is smirking, the corner of her mouth turned up.

“Like that,” Sam says, averting her eyes, trying to hide the flush in her cheeks. She can feel Alex’s eyes burning through her, and it makes her feel aware of every cell in her body. She playfully shoves Alex’s forearm with her palm to try to distract Alex’s gaze when she feels Alex reach for her just as she’s pulling her hand back, feels Alex’s hand settling on Sam’s elbow. 

Sam looks up and meets Alex’s eyes again finally. Alex’s expression is focused, her gaze moving over Sam’s face. The desire in her eyes takes Sam’s breath away. Sam’s feels the pace of her heart beat quicken until the sound seems almost deafening. 

Brazenly, Sam slowly lifts her hand to Alex’s face, her fingers just barely touching the hairs falling over her face before dropping down to skim over Alex’s long neck. Alex’s eyes move to Sam’s mouth, and Sam’s breathing grows labored. Time feels slowed. Alex leans in. Sam closes her eyes. 

Knock knock knock, comes a rap on the door all of a sudden. 

They pull apart quickly. Sam’s eyes shoot open. She looks up to see a young woman standing in her doorway.

“Ms. Arias?” her assistant asks.

Sam shoots to her feet. “Yes?” she replies, breathless and frustrated. She reflexively smooths out the lines of her silk shirt, remembers her blazer is still draped across the back of the couch. 

“I have Mr. Bradford from finance on the line.”

“That’s not on my schedule.”

“He said it was urgent.” 

“Okay. Can you give me two and then transfer it in here?”

Sam finally looks back over to see Alex, a shy embarrassed smile on her face.

“I should get back to work,” Alex says, standing, reaching for Sam’s blazer off the couch. She takes a step and opens the jacket to help Sam back into it. 

Sam slides her arms in. As Alex’s hands drop, Sam reaches for one and turns to face Alex.

“Thank you for coming by. It was good to see you.”

“You too.”

The phone ringing at Sam’s desk breaks their gaze. Their hands release. Sam moves towards the phone as Alex turns to leave. 

“Alex, before you go,” Sam calls out. Alex looks back. “Ruby made me promise to invite you to her basketball game tomorrow, but please don’t feel obligated if you have better things-“

“I’ll be there.”

—

It’s early evening. The fluorescent lights beam down from overhead, giving off an unnatural glow. Sam and Alex meander slowly down the hall between rows of lockers and down the long corridor at Davis Middle School. The distant hum of spectators filtering in and the sound of basketballs bouncing off hardwood floors emanates from the gym nearby. Alex’s boots click on the floors. They had arrived half an hour before the game for Ruby to get changed and warm up and were now biding the time before tip off. 

Alex had met them at their house earlier that evening. Ruby had answered the door, and Alex had waited in the foyer. Sam had finally appeared at the top of the staircase, apologizing profusely for making Alex wait. Sam was flustered and rushed in that endearing way that was starting to become familiar to her.

Alex had ridden with them in the passenger seat of the Cadillac beside Sam. Ruby had leaned forward from the backseat, her smile beaming, excitedly telling Alex about the cross town rivalry with their opponent tonight, as Sam kept telling her to lean back and put her seatbelt back on. It had felt comfortable in a way she hadn’t expected. The banter between the three of them flowed easily. 

Now, she and Sam are alone, and her nerves have set back in. She feels acutely aware of Sam’s proximity and wonders if she should bridge the gap between them, take her hand. For the last day, she’s been thinking about their last encounter in Sam’s office, replaying each moment in her mind, still surprised that her heart had conspired against her mind. She thinks how the more time she spends with Sam, the harder “taking it slow” has become. 

Instead of lingering on the thought, she pushes it out of her head and takes in the the hallway, the lockers, the trophy cases, the flyers on the walls, the scuffed floors. She tugs subconsciously on the edges of her black leather jacket, just to occupy her hands. 

“I can’t remember the last time I was in a school,” she remarks. “Really brings it all back,” she adds with a deep breath. 

“Yeah?” Sam asks, intrigued. “What was 16 year old Alex Danvers like?”

Alex grimaces. “Confused. Insecure. Overachieving.”

Sam laughs. “That’s sounds better than my confused, insecure, underachieving.”

“Oh yeah. And look at what a failure you’ve become as a result,” Alex replies sarcastically. 

Sam smiles. 

A long beat passes as Alex considers her question again. She thinks of the constant friction with her mother, all of the feelings inadequacy, the fights, the lectures, the pressure.

“I guess I was a little bit angry too,” Alex finally adds, tentatively. 

Sam looks up at her, her face soft, concerned. Alex doesn’t even know why she’s telling her all of this, why she’s opening up, why it feels easy. 

“Why angry?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister. I’d jump in front of a bus for her...” Alex starts. “...but when Kara came to live with us, it wasn’t exactly easy for me.”

“How so?”

“Going from being an only child to being constantly compared to someone else.”

“You two are so different. I can’t even imagine comparing you.”

“It took me a long time to really understand, you know, that as hard as it was for me, that it was even harder for her. Now I can’t even imagine life without her.”

“You guys are lucky to have each other.”

“I hated my parents for it then, but she’s the best thing they ever gave me.”

Sam smiles and nods before turning her gaze. She thinks for a moment before turning back.

“I feel a little bad that we haven’t told her,” she says with a slight frown. 

“Oh, trust me, she will lose it.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Depends on your definition of good. Her sister dating one of her best friends? Watch out. I’ll warn you, it might be a little overwhelming.”

Sam laughs. Just then, they hear a booming voice emanating through the speakers announcing the start of the game, and Sam leads Alex towards the gym. 

—

They take a seat halfway up the bleachers in the center of the gym. Down on the sidelines, Ruby is dressed in her red and black uniform, huddling with her team. The girls circle up and give a boisterous “Go Warriors!” before taking the floor. 

in the back of her head, Sam can’t stop thinking about Alex’s words. Dating. It’s the first time Alex has given this a title, put a name to their relationship. She looks over at Alex, who’s watching Ruby take the court with a mix of pride and excitement that makes Sam’s heart seize up. 

The referee blows his whistle, and the ball is tossed between the opposing players. It’s lobbed back to Ruby’s team, and it’s immediately passed to Ruby as she takes point and starts dribbling down the court. She fakes left then weaves past a defender, drawing the defense to her before passing it off to a teammate, who’s free to sink a shot. 

Sam and Alex erupt into cheers and claps. 

“Girl’s got some skills,” Alex remarks, impressed. 

Sam laughs. “She definitely didn’t get that from me.”

Alex nods, and Sam notices her body shift, notices her brow furrow in thought momentarily. Sam swallows hard, wondering where her thoughts have wandered. 

Alex finally turns to her.

“Where is Ruby’s father?” Alex asks cautiously. “Unless that’s too intrusive.”

“Nope, that’s a totally fair question.” Sam pauses. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Does he know about her?”

Sam thinks back, but the truth is she hardly remembers that night that would change the course of her life forever. A night of too much alcohol, peppered with drugs, and punctuated by poor decisions. 

“He knows,” Sam replies, nodding. “He doesn’t know anything about her. Doesn’t know when she was born or her name. Never met her. But he didn’t want anything to do with it,” Sam continues, shrugging. “Which, to be honest, I was fine with. It was a stupid teenage mistake.”

“Does she ever ask about him?”

“She used to... For a while, I would tell her the stork dropped her off in a little basket on my doorstep. That stopped working after about seven. So I had to tell her the truth.”

“Which is...”

“People make mistakes, but sometimes the very best things come out of them.”

Alex nods. Sam’s watches her eyes as they fix on Ruby. She’s grabbed a rebound and is racing down the court. She weaves around an opponent and moves towards the basket. Sam feels Alex’s hand reach over to her knee, feels her squeeze in nervous anticipation of the next play. Sam swallows hard at the touch, distracted by the rush it send through her. 

By the time Sam looks up again, Ruby is sinking a layup. Alex’s hand leaves her knee and she’s clapping and cheering. Just as Ruby starts running to her back on defense, she looks up at the stands and flashes them a broad grin. 

“He’s missing out,” Alex says softly.

Sam feels her eyes well up with tears. She blinks them back and tells herself it’s too soon to feel this way about Alex, but it’s already too late. 

—

“Someone really exhausted themselves tonight,” Alex remarks, motioning to Ruby asleep in the backseat. 

It’s late now. The game has since ended, handing Ruby’s team a narrow but definitive victory. They are back in the Cadillac, indie rock humming softly on the radio as Sam navigates the quiet suburban streets. 

“I’m jealous. I need the perfect mattress, some calming music, a couple Xanax maybe, but that kid can fall asleep literally anywhere.”

“So you’re saying you have the perfect mattress, huh?” Alex questions with a smirk. 

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Shouldn’t you get a second opinion before making such claims?” Alex teases suggestively. 

“I have.”

“Oh.”

“She’s passed out back there.”

Alex releases a relieved laugh. “So not the most discerning critic. You really should get an adult opinion.”

“Oh yeah? Thank you for that sound advice, Alex Danvers,” Sam replies sarcastically. “Like there’s a line of women desperately battling it out to shack up with a single mom in the suburbs.”

“I just pictured that in my head,” Alex says with a laugh. “The line around the block.”

“What would the neighbors think?”

“Probably that you were running a lesbian brothel.”

Sam laughs loudly in reply. 

Just then, they hear the rustle of Ruby stirring. 

“What’s so funny?” Ruby asks, her voice heavy and groggy. 

“Nothing, sweetheart,” Sam replies.

Sam and Alex exchange a smile as they wait for Ruby to settle her back down and drift back to sleep. Sam’s eyes turn back to the road as she makes a turn onto their street. 

“Well, it’s too bad there’s no line. I was ready for a throw down,” Alex says with a smirk.

Sam laughs. 

Alex then reaches out to Sam’s hand resting on the center console and slides her fingers between Sam’s. 

Sam turns to Alex, eyes wide in surprise. Alex looks at her hopefully, as if to make sure she isn’t out of line. 

Sam swallows hard and gently squeezes Alex’s hand in response.

—

When they return to the house, Sam sends Ruby up to bed, but not without a bit of resistance. Afterwards, Sam turns to Alex in the open doorway and offers to walk her out. They fall into stride as they make their way down the stone walkway towards the curb. The night is cool and quiet. In this part of town, the sky is clear enough to see the constellations. 

“Thank you...for tonight, for coming,” Sam tells Alex. “It meant a lot to Ruby.” And me, she wants to add, but she doesn’t. 

They reach the sidewalk, and Alex turns to face her. Sam looks around for Alex’s black SUV, but it’s nowhere in sight. 

“Where’s your ride?” Sam wonders. 

“You’re looking at it,” Alex replies, motioning to a few feet away, where Sam’s gaze turns, finding a black motorcycle parked along the curb.

“Goddamn, Alex Danvers,” Sam says, shaking her head, her eyes moving over Alex’s frame next to the bike. 

“What?” Alec laughs. 

“You cheer on a single mom’s kid at her basketball game and then you ride off on your Ducati. You’re gonna break my heart, aren’t you?” Sam jests. 

“It’d have to be mine to break first,” Alex counters. 

Sam’s face grows more serious. 

“I think you know it is,” Sam says softly. She sees Alex’s expression change, but before she can reply, Sam continues, her tone lighter. “Well, don’t let Ruby see this. She is definitely not allowed on one of these while I’m still roaming this earth.”

“It might be a little late for that.”

Sam follows Alex’s gaze up to the house, to Ruby’s bedroom window where Sam spots her spying. She shoos Ruby away, and Sam sees her duck out of view. 

“What about Ruby’s mom?” Alex asks, drawing Sam’s attention back. “Is she allowed?”

“Maybe not a good idea for the sole provider of a very expensive and high maintenance pre-teen.”

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” Alex says firmly, and somehow Sam knows it’s true. 

Sam nods. Their eyes are fixed on each other. A long moment passes. 

“Is she still watching us?” Sam finally asks. 

Alex’s eyes flit up to the window and back. 

“Like a hawk.”

“How is it that I’m the one feeling like I’m being watched by her mother?” Sam jests. 

Alex chuckles. 

“Well, I guess we’d better keep this goodbye PG for the audience,” Alex jokes, a reluctance in her voice.

Alex extends her arms and leans in. Their arms wrap around each other, Alex’s around Sam’s back, Sam’s around Alex’s neck. Sam breathes in the scent of lavender on Alex’s skin. Alex’s hair brushes against Sam’s cheek. Despite all this time spent together, Sam’s acutely aware that this is the closest they’ve ever been. They linger in each other’s arms. Sam feels her ow breathing grow labored. Her heart is pounding in her chest. 

Sam finally pulls back slightly until she can see Alex’s face. Alex’s eyes are still closed. Sam’s gaze runs over the angles of Alex’s face, over the curve of her lips, and Sam thinks, what business does Alex have being so goddamn beautiful. 

Sam’s eyes settles on Alex’s mouth, and suddenly, taking it slow feels like an impossible commitment. Sam leans in until her lips touch Alex’s. She feels Alex tense, and Sam’s chest tightens, her body stiffens with panic that this is too fast, that Alex’s isn’t ready, that she’s crossed the line, but then she feels Alex’s hands slide down her back and tighten around her narrow waist, feels Alex pull her closer until the space between them narrows, until their bodies are pressed tightly, and she feels Alex’s lips moving against her own. 

When Sam pulls back moments later, Alex is wide-eyed, and her cheeks are flushed. She looks dazed and surprised.

Sam smiles and gives a slight shrug. 

“She’s almost 13.”

— 

On the ride home, wind whips around Alex’s body; the roar of the engine fills the air. Alex can’t stop thinking of Sam, of her mouth and the way she smells and how their bodies fit together. The electricity that surges between them when they touch. How easy it is to be around Sam. How she relaxes in Sam’s presence. How being with her fills this void inside that she had thought might always be empty. 

Sam’s words echo in her head, what she’d said about her heart... about it belonging to Alex. This hadn’t been the plan. They were supposed to be going slow, giving it time, not rushing in. But how do you keep holding back when you want so much more? 

—

An hour later, Sam is dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. She clicks the bathroom light off after washing up and is on her way to her waiting bed when her phone, sitting atop her nightstand, starts ringing. It’s Alex.

“Hi,” Sam says with a grin.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Why? Are you asking me out, Alex Danvers?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love Ruby. But I thought we could have a night, you and I.”

“I would love that,” Sam replies as she slides between the sheets of her bed, considering how much better it would feel if she was crawling in next to the woman across the line. 

“So tomorrow?”

“Ugh, I can’t. I got roped into a PTA meeting. Don’t ask.”

Sam hears Alex laugh. 

“Okay, how about Saturday night?”

“Saturday I can do.”

“Perfect. It’s a date.”

—

Alex hits the red end call button on her cell, a smile lingering on her face. She’s sitting on the sofa at home, a fire roaring across from her. She’d been debating making the call since she’d left Sam’s house, but by the time she’d returned home, she’d given up trying to talk herself out of it.

After a long moment, Alex clicks over on the favorites button and the screen changes. Her eyes move over the two names.

Kara Danvers.  
Maggie Sawyer.

It’s been three months since she’s seen her, three months since they’ve spoken. The last she’d heard was a simple, curt thank you text for sending her passport. Alex had spent the last few weeks trying not to think of her. She feels guilty to admit that Sam has made it easier, has made her less sullen, the nights home alone seem much less lonely. She’d stopped feeling like the world was caving in. 

She thinks back to what J’onn had said. 

It always feels too soon.  
I fought it tooth and nail.  
You deserve to be happy, Alex. 

Alex slides over Maggie’s name on the screen until the delete button appears. Her thumb lingers over the red key. She hesitates. 

Finally, she clicks the phone off instead, setting it on her night stand and turning off the lamp.

—

Sam leans back in her chair at her desk. The warm mid-day sunlight shines in from the rear window, and Sam notes how the natural light is her favorite thing about this little square of space. 

Her phone is in hand, and she has a small smile on her face as she re-examines the texts from Alex that she had received that morning confirming their date Saturday. Her mind is floating back again to that kiss the night before when a voice breaks her thoughts.

“Is someone daydreaming?”

Sam looks up abruptly and sees Lena Luthor entering her office, a smug, knowing smile painted on her face. 

Sam turns her cell phone down on its face quickly. 

“What? No. Are you kidding? I mean- who has time? That’s ridiculous.”

“You must tell me who has got you all twisted  
up,” Lena replies as she strides across the room towards the desk where Sam is seated. 

“I will do no such thing.”

“So there is someone! Samantha Arias. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush before.”

Sam fidgets, her face feeling hot. 

“I’m not- I don’t blush.”

Lena nods curiously. She takes a seat in the edge of the desk. 

“Any chance this has something to do with a particular special agent that seems to be making appearances on the regular bearing cups of coffee and take out lunches?”

Sam’s eyes widen, but she tries to hide her shock at Lena’s astuteness. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lena.”

“Mmmhmm. Fine. I’ll just ask Kara.”

“No! Please don’t say anything to Kara, I don’t think Alex has told her.”

“I knew it,” Lena says, a self-satisfied smirk. She pauses, thinking. “Well, I approve. She’s good for you.”

“She’s incredible,” Sam responds, surprised at her own honesty. 

“Wow, strong words. I mean, she is quite impressive,” Lena says with a shrug, looking off. “She did save my life once.”

Sam’s brows raise. Lena waves off Sam’s concern. 

“It comes with the last name. Anyway, I just hope she’s not still carrying around the ghost of relationships past.”

Sam swallows hard. There had been no mention of Maggie for some time in her conversations with Alex, not since that first night when they had first started this, and Sam had done a decent job of pretending it was no longer a concern. The reminder stings. 

“We’re taking it slow,” Sam assures. 

“The sparkle in your eye is not of someone taking it slow, but you keep telling yourself that, Lena counters, rising to her feet. 

Sam watches Lena as she turns and exits. She tries to disregard her words, but Sam can’t shake the uneasiness that has settled in. 

—

Sam stands in front of the full length mirror in her bedroom applying mascara. She’s wearing a simple long-sleeve, fitted black dress that hugs her curves down to her knees. In the back is a deep v-cut revealing her bare olive skin. Her hair falls in waves over her shoulders. 

Saturday night had arrived quickly, and despite her anticipation, Sam has felt a touch of anxiety creep up on her. So far, things with Alex have been casual and easy and without expectations, but tonight made things official. It gave this a title that she hoped wouldn’t complicate things.

She pulls out a stick of burgundy lipstick and begins to apply it to her lips. 

In the reflection appears Ruby, wide-eyed, broad smile, looking on with pride. 

“Zip me up?” Sam asks with a smile.

Ruby steps forward and Sam leans down slightly to allow Ruby to slide the zipper up the back of her dress. 

“You look really pretty, mom.”

“Aw, thanks sweetie. You want some?” Sam offers the lipstick, and Ruby nods eagerly. “Pucker up.”

Ruby steps forward and pouts her lips. Sam lifts the lipstick and gently applies it to her daughter. 

Ruby smiles then looks in the mirror. 

“It looks so much better on you, mom.”

Sam pulls her daughter close, wrapping her arm around her and facing the mirror with her. “That’s because you are way too beautiful to ever need makeup.”

Ruby’s eyes travel to her mom’s dress. She grins. “She’s gonna fall over when she sees you.”

Sam scrunches her face with uncertainty. “You think so?”

“I know so!” Ruby exclaims. 

Sam smiles. She grabs a towel from nearby and leans down to her daughter’s level. She starts gently wiping off the lipstick until Ruby’s lips are bare. “You really like her, huh?” Sam asks. 

Ruby nods. 

“Me too.”

—

Sam arrives to Calloway’s just before eight. Alex had planned to pick her up, but she’d called an hour earlier, apologizing profusely for being unexpectedly detained at work, wondering if they could meet at the restaurant instead. Sam had obliged. The least she could do, she had thought, considering how her own work had interfered with their plans before. She’s waiting now, just inside the bar, which is tucked around a corner from the entrance, for their table to be ready. 

“Sam?”

She looks up at the sound of the vaguely familiar voice and feels her heart stop. 

Long dark hair, brown eyes, leather jacket, badge at her hip.

“Maggie...” 

“Hey, long time, no see,” Maggie says casually. “How are you?”

Sam’s mouth is dry. She shifts her weight anxiously. 

“Good, really good. You?”

Maggie shrugs. “You know...”

“Are you having dinner?” Sam asks awkwardly. 

“Nah, just talking to a potential witness, cook in the back. You look nice. You here with a date?”

“No, it’s just a, um, a friend thing,” Sam answers, wringing her hands. Her eyes dart up towards the entrance, but she can’t see the front door from her vantage point. 

“A friend thing, huh? Looking like that?” Maggie replies disbelieving. “So where is he?”

“She... she said she got, um, tied up at work.”

“Wow,” Maggie replies, brows raised. “I guess Alex does have a pretty good sensor.”

Sam’s attention turns back to Maggie at the mention of Alex’s name. 

“I’m sorry? What about Alex?”

“It’s nothing.”

Sam nods. She doesn’t know what else to say, and she wants desperately to be anywhere else. There’s a long beat. 

“I should maybe wait by the front,” Sam finally says.

“Okay, yeah. It was great to see you, Sam.”

“You too, Maggie,” she replies softly. 

Sam takes two steps to round the corner towards the front of the restaurant when she looks up and sees Alex right in front of her, walking towards her. Her hair has a slight curl. Her lips are a soft coral. She’s wearing a fitted forest green dress that shows off her toned arms. She’s a vision, but Sam can hardly focus. 

“I’m so sorry I’m late!” Alex says, her eyes bright and her smile wide. “Wow, you look.. Wow!” Alex adds, her eyes admiring Sam.

Sam feels Alex’s hands reach for her waist to pull her closer into a hug, but Sam stiffens. She swallows hard. 

“Alex...” she whispers. 

Alex squints her eyes in confusion at Sam’s expression. Finally, Alex’s gaze moves from Sam to the figure behind her. 

Sam turns with her, watches the realization spread across Maggie’s face, her eyes going from Sam to Alex to Alex’s hands at Sam’s waist, their proximity, their closeness, their familiarity. For a brief moment, Sam catches a glint of tears forming in Maggie’s eyes. 

Sam looks back to Alex. Alex’s eyes are wide with a mix of shock and panic and devastation. Her hands drop immediately from Sam’s waist. 

“Maggie...” Alex’s voice is breathy and weak, and it feels like a knife through Sam’s chest.

Maggie is silent. She takes a step back, then another, before turning and racing towards the exit in a fury. Alex moves after her. 

“Maggie!” Alex shouts before disappearing from view. 

Sam closes her eyes, as she realizes that the woman she has been falling so hard for just ran after someone else, and not just anyone, but the woman she’s been mourning for months, the one she’d nearly committed her whole life to, the one who’d held her heart so tightly.

The one who maybe still does... Sam thinks. 

Sam shakes her head. What is she doing here, she asks herself. What was she ever thinking getting involved with Alex, she wonders. Why did she ever think this could go anywhere, that they could be something. How could she have thought that Alex’s heart would ever be hers? 

—

Alex’s stomach twists in knots, and she feels like she’s going to be sick. She pushes open the front door of the restaurant and steps into the cool night. 

Maggie is already five paces ahead, her back to her, no sign of slowing. 

“Maggie, wait!” Alex shouts desperately. 

Maggie halts abruptly, letting Alex catch up to her. Maggie spins on her heel to face her. 

“Stop!” Maggie says firmly. Her eyes are filled with anger and pain and tears. 

Their eyes meet, and it’s like Alex is back to that night again, feeling the pain of their goodbye all over again. That same ache returns, that same overwhelming sense of her entire world self-destructing, the same devastation of losing forever. 

“Look, I can explain,” Alex replies, gesturing emphatically. 

“Explain?” Maggie scoffs. “I’m not an idiot, Danvers. I think it is quite obvious what happened. You found someone who can give you everything you want,” Maggie says, motioning towards the restaurant, where Sam waits inside. “You moved on.”

Maggie turns again to leave. 

“No. Maggie...please,” Alex pleads, her own eyes welling up with tears now.

Maggie looks back again. 

“Stop, Alex!” Maggie puts her hand up, motioning for Alex to stay in place. “Do not follow me. Do not call me. If you care at all, you will stay the hell away from me.”

The rage in Maggie’s voice stops Alex in her steps. Alex watches as Maggie turns and disappears quickly around a corner and back out of her life. 

—

Sam has her phone in hand when Alex reappears, her predetermined excuse at the ready. She spots Alex’s form a few paces away, and Alex looks like she’s trying to collect herself. Sam sees her wipe tears from her eyes, take a deep breath, swallow hard. 

When Alex finally reaches her, she smiles, but it feels forced. 

“I’m sorry about that, I did not expect any of this.”

“I’m sorry to do this too, but Ruby’s at a sleepover, and her friend’s mom called. She’s not feeling well.”

“Oh, no. I hope she’s okay,” Alex says, her brow furrowed with concern. 

“I need to go pick her up,” Sam explains curtly. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I totally understand. Can I walk you to your car?”

“I valeted.”

“Okay... Rain check?”

“Sure.”

Sam turns and quickly makes her way to the exit. She barely makes it outside before her eyes fill with tears.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it took so long to get this next chapter out. I really wanted to get it right, and I’m hoping it resonates. 
> 
> Of note, this chapter is where I took more creative liberties and started to diverge slightly from the canon scenes. This is, I suppose, how I thought the story should have been told. I hope you all like where it’s going. 
> 
> —

When Sam returns home, her first stop is the kitchen. Her eyes are still blurry with tears. She grabs a bottle of wine and a glass and trudges upstairs. She sets both on her nightstand and unzips her dress, letting it fall into a pile on the floor, not bothering to replace it in the closet. She pulls on sweats and then pops the cork, pouring herself a glass. She crawls in between the sheets and takes a long swig, hoping to numb the pain. 

What had she been thinking? she asks herself. Did she really believe that they’d just easily slip into this little happy family? How could she have been so naive? Alex obviously wasn’t ready. She clearly still wasn’t over Maggie, still hadn’t let her go, was maybe even still in love with her. And what was she? What was this, if not just a convenient rebound, a distraction, a way to dull her own heartache? Sure Alex had said she could see their potential, but what did it matter when she’d seen the look on Alex’s face and knew she’d never compare to what Alex had felt for the woman before her.

Her heart feels crushed, fragmented. Her feelings for Alex had crept up so unexpectedly, so forcefully, making space inside her heart that she didn't know she’d had. She never expected to fall so hard so quickly. She's sure she's never felt this way before, never desired someone so completely, both emotionally and physically. It makes it hurt all the more. 

Sam finishes the glass and quickly pours another. Her tears have dried out, but her eyes are burning with their residue.

She’s grateful to have the house to herself tonight, to have some time to figure out how she’s going to explain this. Because what was she going to tell Ruby? Why did she ever bring her into this? It was awful enough to have her own heart breaking, but this would crush her daughter. 

—

When he arrives, Alex is slumped over the bar in defeat, elbows on the dark grimy surface. The space is dark and crowded. Her chest aches. Her shoulders feel heavy with guilt. She’s tired, but she doesn’t dare go home. 

“So what are we doing?” Winn asks as he slides onto the bar stool beside Alex, facing out, eyes scanning the room. His voice is eager, energetic, too much so, and Alex starts to regret her bid for company, which was really more a summons than an invitation. 

“Is this a top secret undercover mission?” he continues. “Who are we spying on? Am I your long devoted husband or your passionate forbidden lover?”

“We’re getting a drink, Winn,” Alex replies, her voice laced with annoyance, although she won’t admit she’s grateful he showed. She didn’t want to be alone, not with her thoughts, not tonight. 

Just then, the bartender approaches with two shot glasses filled to the brim with tequila and slides them across the bar to Alex. She throws a credit card down in return. She slides one glass over to Winn, whose back still faces the bar, and then takes hers down in one quick swig. She savors the burn as it slides down her throat. 

“Wait, really?” Winn asks, finally spinning to face Alex. “Then why are you so dressed up?” he asks, his hand motioning to Alex’s tight dress and her coifed hair, her high heels and her lipsticked pout. 

“I’m not,” Alex replies firmly. 

Winn’s eyes narrow, intrigued and amused. 

“Were you on a date, Alex Danvers?”

“Nope.”

“Who’s the lucky lady?”

“Winn!”

“Shutting up.”

“Are you gonna drink that?” Alex asks, motioning to the other shot of tequila, and Winn flashes a look of disinterest. 

Alex reaches over and takes the glass.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Winn objects, but Alex is already lifting the glass, already placing her lips to the edge and downing the golden liquid. 

When she’s finished, she sets the glass back down on the bar with a loud clink. 

“For the record, I wasn’t on a date. The date would have had to have actually started for me to have been on a date.”

“Nice!”

Alex’s brow raises.

“I’m proud of you,” Winn continues. 

“Psht. Proud of what?” she replies derisively. 

“Getting yourself out there.”

“Like I said, I didn’t get anywhere.”

“All right, what happened? Why did your date end by,” Winn glances at his cell, checking the time of Alex’s text. “...oh, 8:07pm?”

“For one thing,” Alex takes in a deep breath. “I ran into Maggie.”

“Shiiiiittttt,” Winn says with a grimace. “How did that go? Should I even ask?”

“I’m here with you, aren’t I?” Alex catches eyes with the bartender and lifts her hand, motioning with a spinning finger for another round. “She was angry. Like really angry. Yelling angry.”

“Now that’s not fair. She can’t expect you to never go on a date again.”

Alex shrugs. “I kind of hoped she wouldn’t. You should have seen the look on her face. It was awful. It was like I put a knife right through her heart,” Alex pauses, the look on Maggie’s face seared into her memory. “She said it was clear that I’d moved on.”

“Have you?”

Alex sighs. “Maybe I thought I had. Or I was. Clearly, I was wrong, because seeing her, Winn. I just... I mean, what am I doing? Dating? What’s wrong with me?”

“You gotta give yourself a break, Alex.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s okay if you met someone. If you have feelings for someone else.”

“You’re assuming a lot.”

“Maybe. But the Alex Danvers I know wouldn’t go get all dressed up like that for just anyone.”

Alex nods. Maybe he’s right? Sam isn’t just anyone. She doesn’t feel like that at least. They had connected. Something had been slowly building between them, and Alex had started to feel things she’d never expected to. 

The bartender drops off the next two shot glasses brimming with tequila, and this time Winn doesn’t object when Alex reaches for one and swallows it down. There’s a long pause as Alex collects her thoughts. 

“Have you talked to her? Maggie?” she finally asks, hesitantly. 

“We tried reaching out a few times. James and I. She hasn’t wanted to see us.”

Alex simply nods in reply.

“Look, Alex...” Winn starts, drawing Alex’s gaze. “If Maggie was upset about you moving on, maybe it’s because she was right?”

Alex’s eyes narrow as she ponders his words. 

“So you gonna tell me who this mystery woman is?” Winn finally asks with a smirk, breaking Alex’s thoughts. 

“Never.”

—

By the time Alex arrives back at her empty apartment, it’s late. Her gait is unsteady. She drops her keys twice fumbling to open the door, and she finds herself grateful for Winn’s insistence on driving her home. Her thoughts are laced with liquor. She thinks of calling Maggie. To apologize. To explain. But what is there to explain? What could she possibly say? 

She thinks back to the last time they had seen each other, to that night they’d said goodbye. 

See you around, Danvers... Maggie had whispered. 

And for ages, Alex had thought she would. She had thought they might run into each other at Maggie’s favorite coffee shop where they’d go on Sunday mornings after yoga, or at the little Thai place that Alex had introduced Maggie to where they had sat and planned the seating arrangement for the wedding over yellow curry and pad see ew, or even at a crime scene like that day that had brought them together in the first place. 

Alex had imagined it a hundred times over until she’d finally given up, until she’d stopped looking for Maggie everywhere she went, until she had finally stopped believing a chance encounter might set things right, might change Maggie’s mind, might bring them back together.

But this, this was never what she had pictured. Maggie seeing her with her arms around someone else. In that moment, it didn’t seem to matter how much time had passed, or how good things had started to feel with Sam, or that Alex had finally started to feel the void in her be filled. It had felt wrong, like sacrilege. 

Alex takes a deep breath and feels her chest ache. Sam... She wonders if she should call her. She wants to know that Ruby is okay, but she has retained at least enough lucidity to know better than to dial her drunk at 1am. 

But now, thinking of her again, she already feels herself missing her. Alex remembers how it had felt when she’d laid eyes on her earlier that night, how in that moment everything had started to feel right in the world, how after months of feeling like her life was over, she’d started to feel a future crystallizing. And then how all of that came crashing down when she came face to face with her past. 

Alex kicks off her heels at the door before padding across the apartment. She pulls off her dress and then unclips her bra before pulling back her sheets and sliding into the bed. The satin feels cool on her bare skin, and it reminds her that she’s alone again. The room spins. She pulls the pillow closer and buries her face. 

—

The sunlight beams through Sam’s window as she stirs. Her head aches. Her eyes are swollen. Her body feels weak. The bottle of wine sits near empty on her nightstand. She rubs her face just as the sound that woke her begins to materialize. It’s her cell ringing. 

Sam reaches for the phone. It’s Ruby.

“Hey, baby,” she says, her voice groggy and scratchy still from sleep.

“Mom, are you coming to pick me up?” Ruby asks, her voice laced with worry.

“Shoot, what time is it?” Sam says, sitting up quickly in bed, her eyes moving to the wall clock. 

“10:30,” Ruby replies just as Sam sees the time. “You were supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

Sam squeezes her eyes shut in frustration and shakes her head. She silently chastises herself for screwing up at motherhood once again. 

“I’m so sorry, Rubes. I just- I lost track of time.”

“Are you still sleeping?”

“Of course not. I’ll be there soon.”

“It’s ok. Tess’s mom said she’d drop me off at home ‘cause they have stuff to do. Wait, you are home, right?”

“Yes, of course, baby. I’m home.”

And even as she says it, it hurts. She’d built up so many hopes for last night, and she’d be lying if she hadn’t been happy that Ruby had had a sleepover planned. She’d felt electrified by the off chance that after a night of wine and laughter and flirtation that Alex might have invited her home, that she might have woken in Alex’s arms in her bed instead of in her own empty one. 

Sam dismisses the thought now. Maybe a relationship was an awful idea to begin with. If she can’t even give her daughter what she needs right now, who was she to even think of giving part of herself to someone else. So maybe this is for the better, she tells herself. But it doesn’t do anything to dull the ache. 

As she’s about to set her phone down, she notices she has a missed call. It’s from earlier that morning. There’s a voicemail. It’s Alex. 

She hesitates a long moment before finally shaking her head, setting her phone back down, and pulling herself from the bed to go shower, leaving the message unlistened to. 

—

When Sam hears the front door unlock and her daughter step inside, dropping her backpack on the floor with a thud, Sam is already mid-way through making apology pancakes.

“Mom?” Ruby calls out.

“I’m in here!”

“Hey pumpkin,” Sam says as her daughter appears. “Come here. I’m so sorry.”

Ruby crosses to her mom and Sam puts her arms around her, pulling her in for a hug. 

“It’s okay, I just got worried.”

Sam releases her and places her hands on either side of Ruby’s face.

“Nothing to worry about,” she assures her, placing a kiss on her forehead. “Just an overtired mom, okay?” 

Ruby looks over at the stovetop, and her eyes widen. 

“Pancakes?” she asks excitedly.

“Blueberry.”

“Yum!” 

“Why don’t you grab us some plates,” Sam tells her, and Ruby moves towards a cupboard.

Ruby grabs two plates and a couple of forks from the drawer and sets them down beside the stove.

“Soooo, how was your date?” Ruby asks with an excited grin. 

Sam breathes in sharply. She’d tried to prepare herself for this conversation, tried to rehearse all the different ways she could tell Ruby that all the places she had thought she and Alex were going were just not going to happen, but now that the moment is here, she can’t find the words. 

“We had to reschedule. She had a work emergency,” she says instead as she lifts the pancakes off of the pan with a spatula and sets two violet stained ones each on the plates. 

“Ugh. So her job is as bad as yours,” Ruby replies with a disgusted frown. “When I grow up, I don’t want to work. Is that possible?”

“That’s called being independently wealthy,” Sam says with a laugh, ruffling the top of Ruby’s head. “And I’m sorry, baby, but that’s what we all wish for. 

“So she didn’t even see you in your dress?”

Sam hesitates. “She did, very briefly,” she says, thinking back, remembering the way Alex had looked at her for that fleeting moment, the way that smile of hers had spread across her face and all the way to those soft brown eyes, the way her gaze had moved over Sam. 

“And?” Ruby asks hopefully. 

And then she looked at someone else, Sam thinks.

“And I think you should stop asking questions or these pancakes are going to get cold,” Sam tells her instead, handing the plates to Ruby.

“Fine,” Ruby grumbles. 

—

Alex hangs up her cell at the sound of Sam’s voicemail and slides it into her back pocket as she walks into the DEO on Monday morning. Sunday had come and gone without a word back from Sam. By the time Monday had arrived, when another call had gone unanswered, Alex feels herself growing increasingly aware of the silence. She wonders nervously if something has happened to Sam. Her mind can’t stop wondering if the blackouts are back, but she’s sure if something had happened, if Sam had disappeared, she would have heard, if not from Ruby, at least from Lena, when her absence from work this morning would have raised concerns. 

Alex tries to shove the thoughts out of her head as she moves to the DEO locker room, as she undresses from her street clothes into agency-issued black, before exiting to the weapons stores and pulling on a vest, suiting up for battle.

Today she has a mission, and it’s a welcome distraction. 

—

It’s only mid-morning by the time they are back to the DEO with their capture. It feels good knowing they have one worldkiller locked up, and Alex tells herself it’s only time before Reign is in a cell beside her where she belongs. 

After debriefing with the team, Alex wanders down a hallway and into the sparring gym where it’s quiet. She pulls out her phone and decides to phone a different Arias to check in. 

Ruby’s voice answers after just one ring. 

“Alex!”

“Hey, little gem,” Alex replies with a laugh at Ruby’s eagerness. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“I am,” Ruby grumbles.

“They let you have cell phones now?”

“Well, technically we’re not allowed to answer them, but I saw it was you.”

Alex shakes her head and smiles. “What a great influence I am. Well, I just wanted to check and see if you were feeling better.”

“What do you mean?” Ruby wonders. 

Alex hesitates. “Weren’t you sick... the other night?” That’s what Sam had told her, why she’d left early, taken off in a rush, almost hadn’t said goodbye. 

“I haven’t been sick,” Ruby insists. 

“Oh,” Alex replies, as the realization sets in. 

Sam had lied. The pieces start coming together. Sam rushing off before their date could even start. Sam not returning her calls. It’s all been intentional. What happened that night, the chance encounter with Maggie, had changed things.

“I thought my mom was forgetful, but man, is this just an old people thing?”

“Ok, your mom and I are not old,” Alex protests.

“If you say so.”

“So your sleepover...” Alex starts to ask, her voice flat, realizing now that Ruby hadn’t missed it at all, that it hadn’t been Sam’s reason for rushing off, that it was her own fault. 

“Oh my god, so much fun! We stayed up until like 3am and watched Wet Hot American Summer. Don’t tell my mom though, she’ll flip. 

“Your secret’s safe with me...”

Alex says her goodbyes and slides her phone away. She feels stupid for not realizing it before, how Sam would feel seeing her go after Maggie. And now, it’s crystal clear just how badly she screwed up. 

Alex clenched her jaw and paces back and forth as she thinks of Sam, as she realizes what she’s done. She finally stops in front of a punching bag and winds up, landing her fist in the center and muttering, _fuck_.

Just then, the door to the room opens with a creak. 

“Alex.” 

She looks up to see Kara waiting in the doorway expectantly. 

“You ready?” Kara asks. 

Alex purses her lips and nods. 

—

Sam steers the Cadillac down Barrington Way, Ruby beside her in the passenger seat, beaming. She’d protested Lena’s insistence on her taking the day off, but now that she’s away from the office, she realizes how much she needed this, how much she needed time with Ruby to reconnect and find steady ground again. She’ll be okay, she tries to tell herself. They both will be. 

“Do you think Alex wants to come ice skating?” Ruby pipes up, and Sam’s heart sinks. She’s been avoiding the talk she’s known was coming, but she can only hold off so long. 

“I don’t think so, sweetie. She’s probably working.”

“Maybe she’s not. You should call and ask,” Ruby insists. 

“I don’t think so.”

Ruby pulls out her own cell. “I can call since you’re driving.”

“No,” Sam says firmly, and it comes out harsher than she’d wanted. Ruby freezes, looks up with her eyes narrowed confusion. “Look, honey,” Sam takes a deep breath and continues slowly. “Alex isn’t going to be coming around anymore like she was.”

“What? What do you mean?” Ruby turns her body all the way towards Sam. “What did you do?” she demands, accusatorially. 

“Nothing, Ruby. Alex has a lot going on,” Sam tells her. She releases a heavy sigh. “She...doesn’t have room for us.”

Ruby’s face falls in the exact way Sam knew it would, and it reminds her exactly why she’s been avoiding this conversation. Ruby’s whole life’s been about rejection, about being abandoned by people who were supposed to love her, about her blood choosing not to know her. This felt different with Alex, it felt like the exact opposite, like someone who wasn’t even Ruby’s family choosing to be. And that’s what made this hurt so much more. 

“She said that?” Ruby asks hesitantly, softly. 

Sam reaches a hand over and covers her daughter’s. 

“I know you’re disappointed. I am too. But hey, I’m really excited we get this day, just you and me. We haven’t had that in a while.”

Ruby nods. 

“Maybe after the rink we’ll hit up Shake Shack?” Sam suggests. “Sound good?”

Ruby smiles, but Sam can tell she’s hurting too. 

“Sounds great, mom.”

—

Alex sighs in frustration. She feels on edge. They’ve been at this for hours, and Alex is growing increasingly impatient. Purity isn’t giving them anything helpful, and Kara insists on handling her with kid gloves. Kara’s syrupy sweet tone is just agitating her nerves, adding to Alex’s irritation. 

“Where is Reign?” Alex demands, her anger building. “You're not so chatty now, are you? That makes sense. Because I'm not your audience. I'm just looking at a bug under glass.”

Purity laughs derisively. “To use your own words, you think you're smarter than me, stronger than me. You think I'm powerless to your science.”

Alex moves towards the glass, staring down the woman on the other side.

Purity flashes a mocking smile. “I see right through you, Alex Danvers. It's a gift I have, to see inside people. To know them. You want to hurt me because you're hurt. You want me weak, because you're weak. You had your heart ripped out, and now you’re shattered. Broken. And you let it ruin any chance you have at happiness. It’s pathetic.” 

Alex face grows hot. Her hands ball into fists. 

Kara steps forward, lifting her hands to cut off the conversation. “Okay. All right, all right. We're done here.”

“Where is Reign?” Alex raises her voice. 

Kara frowns. “Alex.” 

“See the rage?” Purity taunts. “It’s because you’re alone...again.”

“Alex, what is she-“

“Shut your mouth!” Alex shouts at Purity, her teeth gritting with resentment.

“Let's go,” Kara insists, grabbing Alex’s arm. 

Alex shakes her off, marching towards the door. 

“You had another shot at happiness, Alex Danvers, and you just threw it away,” Purity calls out. “And now, you're just a broken little doll.”

—

Alex is pacing the hallway, arms on her head, when she hears Winn’s voice approaching.

“Hey, what happened?”

Alex’s eyes are wet with tears. Winn pulls her in to her arms to hold her. She wants to break down, she wants to fall apart, but she can’t. She won’t. 

She pushes him away without a word, and she can hear him calling after her as she disappears down the hallway. 

—

When Alex enters the front doors of L-Corp, she feels panicked and desperate. She knows she hasn’t even thought through the decision to show up there unannounced. She hasn’t even considered what she might say to Sam, but all she can think is that she needs to see her, needs to talk to her. 

“Alex...” The voice draws her attention. 

She looks up to see Lena walking towards her, her cell still at her ear. Alex hears her dismiss the call and watches Lena slide the phone into her purse. 

“Hey, Lena. Don’t worry. I’m just here to see Sam,” she assures, continuing past her.

“Sam’s not here,” Lena says, and Alex halts, turning back. “I gave her the day off to spend with Ruby.”

“Oh...” Alex replies solemnly, her voice trailing off. 

“Did you have something scheduled?”

“No, I just...I needed to talk to her.”

“Well, I can pass on a message,” Lena offers, her eyes narrow, examining Alex, as if trying to read her demeanor.

Alex’s body stiffens. She tries to wipe the uneasiness from her face.

“No, that’s okay. I’ll try calling her,” she replies quickly before turning back towards the exit, feeling Lena’s concerned gaze following her out.

Once she makes it outside, to where the clamor of traffic matches the chaos of her thoughts, she reaches for her phone and dials.

She listens to it ring and ring until once again, the voicemail picks up. The sound of Sam’s voice carves out an ache inside of her.

“Sam.. it’s Alex,” she says, taking in a deep breath. “I was hoping we could talk. About the other night. About us... Please call me,” she adds, pleading. 

She hangs up and almost has her phone in her back pocket when she feels it buzzing. She frantically reaches for it.

Her heart sinks when she sees the name.

“What’s up, Kara?”

“Alex, where are you?”

“I just needed some air.”

“You need to get back here,” Kara tells her, her voice distraught. “Purity escaped.”

“Shit,” Alex mutters, hanging up quickly.

—

The subway is crumbling around them, but Alex charges forward, gun in hand, firing shots that only ricochet off Reign’s black armor. Their eyes meet and Alex sees nothing but dark fury.

Reign pushes Alex aside easily, and she hits the ground hard. Reign’s foot comes down on her chest hard, and she feels like her ribs are going to crack. She can’t breathe. 

Suddenly, she hears Purity’s voice, no, Julia’s, calling out to Reign, offering herself up. Alex feels Reign’s weight lift off of her, and she gasps for air. She looks up just in time to see Reign grab Julia and break through the roof and out of sight. 

A moment later, Kara is above her.

“Alex, Alex, are you okay?”

Alex’s breathing is labored, choking in air. 

“I’m fine,” she says between breaths. “I’m fine.”

—

Alex sits across from Kara at the small booth. The bar’s lights are dimmed, and there is a low level hum of voices and soft rock music. Alex taps her finger on the wooden table. 

“Do you want to tell me what's going on?” Kara probes. 

Alex swallows hard. She knew this was coming. She had known Kara wouldn’t just let her behavior ride without at least a minor interrogation. It’s the last thing she wants right now. What she wants, needs, instead, is a stiff drink and her bed, but there’s no hiding from Kara Danvers’ concern. 

The day has come and gone, and Alex still hasn’t heard back from Sam. She’s slowly started to realize that she may never. Seeing Maggie had thrown a wrench in her own emotions, and now Alex had ruined everything. Purity was right. She’d destroyed whatever chance she might have had. 

“I just thought this would be easier,” Alex explains, her voice forlorn. “But it’s not.”

“Alex.”

“I have two speed dials on this phone,” Alex says, lifting her cell. “It’s you...and Maggie. And every day, every single day, I’ve looked at her number and thought, maybe today... maybe today, I will delete her number. I’ll just let myself move on. But I haven’t. Because I’m scared...and weak.”

“No, that’s not true,” Kara insists. 

“No, but I mean it is. Because otherwise I would have done it. I would have just gotten over it. But there is still this piece of me that just hasn’t been able to let it go. And sometimes I think, what if I never do? And I hate it. I hate myself for it. And that's why I’ve lost hope. That's why I was angry and... and why I refused to see Julia the way that you saw her.”

“You know, I... I stopped believing, too. I didn't think I would ever get through the heartbreak. But guess what? I'm getting through it. And you are far stronger than I am.”

“See you’re always hopeful.”

“So are you. You were hopeful when you made the decision that you could have more. And you know what? I think you're right. I think there is another person out there for you, and I think you will be a mom. You... you will have all the things.”

“I don’t know, Kara...” she replies reluctantly. 

“Did something happen, Alex?”

“What do you mean?”

“It just seemed like you were doing so much better with all of this. I’m not saying you can’t still be hurting, but it felt like you were moving on.”

“Nothing happened,” she replies curtly.

Kara frowns. “Alex...”

Alex takes in a deep breath then sighs. 

“You know, from the day I met Maggie, she was all I thought about, Kara, all I dreamed about. I couldn’t imagine a life other than her. And... I don’t know, every time I start to think that maybe I’m ready to let go, maybe I am ready to move on, it’s just... I don’t know maybe the thought of letting go has been even more terrifying than still holding on.”

“I know...” Kara says sympathetically. “But if there is someone else out there for you, which I know there is, someone who can give you everything you want, you’re never going to find her if you don’t let go.”

Kara’s words resonate. Alex nods. Just then, Kara’s phone begins buzzing, and her sister reaches into her bag. Kara excuses herself and takes a few paces away to where it’s quieter.

Alex leans back in the booth, and she thinks of Sam. She thinks of the way her smile always reaches her eyes, of her dry humor and how her laugh makes Alex’s stomach flutter, of her kiss and the way Sam’s lips pressed against her own made everything else dissolve, how in certain quiet moments, she would catch Sam looking at her with such reverence that took her breath away. Alex knows that despite her best efforts, she had been falling for her.

When Kara returns, her expression is distressed.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks. 

“That was Lena. I have to go,” Kara replies cryptically. 

“Is she okay?” Alex wonders curiously. 

Kara shakes her head. “I don’t know. Something’s wrong. She sounded frantic. She wouldn’t tell me what it is. She’s asking for Supergirl.”

“Okay, let me know if you need me.”

Kara nods, grabbing her bag from the seat and turning to go, leaving Alex alone once again with her thoughts. 

Alex ruminates over Kara’s words, and finally, she resolves to do what she knows she needs to do.

—

It’s 7:02pm when Alex reaches the pawn shop. The owner is locking up the store, and Alex rushes over, knocking just as he’s turned around to head towards the back. 

He’s a gruff older man with a thick beard and a scowl. He turns back and taps his watch to indicate that they’re closed. Alex folds her hands to plead. 

He relents, unlocking the door and letting her in.

“Better have something good,” he grunts.

She follows him over to the counter and sets the items down on the glass. He picks them up, reaches under the counter for a small handheld magnifying glass, and gives them a discerning eye. 

He finally looks up. “You’re not gonna get what you paid for ‘em,” he tells her matter of factly.

Alex nods, ponders. After a long beat, she finally replies.

“You know what? I don’t need anything for them.”

The man’s brow furrows. “‘’Scuse me?”

“Keep them,” Alex says, before she turns abruptly to leave.

The man behind the counter stares after her, puzzled, before he looks back down at the objects on the glass countertop, at the two simple platinum rings, each with a single diamond.

—

Alex slides onto her bike moments later. Before she pulls on her helmet and starts the engine, she takes out her phone. She takes a deep breath, finds Sam’s number, and dials.

This time it goes straight to voicemail.

“Sam, hey,” Alex starts, her voice shaky. “I didn’t want to leave this on your voicemail, but I guess I don’t have a choice. 

“Look, Sam, I know now how the other night must have looked. I- I hurt you, and I’m sorry. Going after her was a mistake. To look my past in the eye was... difficult... and painful... but that’s exactly what that is, my past. And Sam, I know what we had started was new, but when I look at you... you feel like my future. 

“Please call me... “

—

The call had come late, but Alex had still been awake in bed, tossing and turning and waiting and hoping. When the phone finally did ring, her hopes had rose before quickly being dashed. 

Now she’s standing in the DEO in uniform where everyone has gathered. Across from her is Kara in her Supergirl garb, standing beside J’onn. Winn stands beside Alex. Other agents are scattered around the room along with Mon-El and Imra and Brainiac.

“What is this?” Winn whispers, leaning over to Alex, rubbing his eyes. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s midnight, Winn.”

“Thank you for coming everyone,” Jonn addresses the group. “This is an urgent matter that could not wait for morning.” He pauses, and Alex feels the group waiting with bated breath. “We have deduced the identity of Reign,” he announces to a room of gasps and whispers. He turns to give Kara the floor. “Supergirl.”

Alex watches as Kara hesitates, sees her sister shift her weight uncomfortably, gathering herself. Alex notices how she takes a deep breath before she speaks and wonders why she looks so unsteady. This is what they’ve been working for, a way to identify and locate their greatest adversary.

“Late this evening, we received a tip from a reliable source,” Kara pauses and swallows hard. “We have identified Reign as a 30 year old woman named Samantha Arias.”

Alex feels her heart arrest inside of her chest at the name. Her face grows hot. She feels dizzy. Her throat goes dry. Kara’s voice dims out to a muffle.

“She lives here in National City and is an executive at L-Corp. The subject, like the previous one, has been unaware of her alter-“

Alex shakes her head, lifts her hand to interject. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. That’s ridiculous, okay? Funny joke, Kara.“ Alex scoffs. “I mean, You almost had me for a second,” Alex says with a forced laugh. She looks around. The room is silent. 

“It’s not a joke, Alex,” Kara replies solemnly. 

J’onn steps forward. “We need you to assemble a procurement team, Agent Danvers.”

“This is insane. You don’t even have proof,” Alex counters in disbelief.

“Alex, I thought that too. But her memory lapses...” Kara replies. “They all coincide with the attacks. When Lena called, it’s because she saw her black out, and... Sam changed. Just like Julia did.”

Alex shakes her head. She feels nauseated all of a sudden, like she’s going to be sick.

“No. No way. I’m not going to listen to this lunacy,” she objects before marching off down the hall. 

When she reaches her lab, she’s shaking. Her eyes are filled with tears. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. They’re wrong, all wrong. 

Reign is ruthless and unrelenting. She’s vicious and vindictive. She had tried to kill Kara, she nearly had. She’s been face to face with Reign more than once, looked her right in the eye and seen nothing familiar, not a trace of humanity, not a shred of Sam’s light. It was all darkness.

Kara steps into the lab and moves calmly to her sister’s side. 

Alex looks up and meets Kara’s eyes. “It’s not Sam. You don’t understand, Kara. It can’t be Sam.”

“Alex...”

“It’s just, it’s not possible. I-i-i would have noticed. I would have figured it out.”

“Look, Alex, I know you’re worried about Ruby. We all are.”

“It’s not just that, Kara,” she answers. She wrings her hands to stop them from shaking.

“Ok, talk to me,” Kara insists.

“Sam and I,” Alex starts, hesitantly. “We’ve been... spending time together,” she says carefully. 

“Okay... we’ve all been spending time with Sam. She’s our friend- Oh!” Kara’s eyes widen with realization. “Wait, Alex. You and Sam are dating? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“No, no. We’re not...” Alex shakes her head, trying to explain, but how can she put into words what she and Sam had, what they had started and then ended. “I mean, I don’t know what we are. Not anymore at least. 

“I don’t understand,” Kara replies, shaking her head.

“It’s complicated. Sam and I... We...” Alex voice chokes up. Tears begin pouring down her face. 

“Oh, Alex.” Kara wraps an arm around Alex and pulls her close to her.

Alex collapses in her embrace, feeling herself beginning to unravel, barely able to even imagine what this truth could mean. 

Alex’s voice drops to a whisper. 

“I can’t lose her, Kara.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, my apologies, but I really want to get some more of this story out because it was getting overdue. Hope this is still enjoyed. More to come, I promise :)

Alex sits alone in the lab. After what had felt like so long of Kara holding Alex, Kara’s phone had started to ring. Kara had reluctantly released her grip at Alex’s insistence and pulled her cell out. 

_It’s Lena_ , she had said, her face twisting with concern and worry and fear in a way that hit Alex right in the gut. 

At first, she had felt grateful for the moment of solitude to collect herself, as Kara’s sympathy only made the pain worse. 

Now, Kara has been gone longer than expected, and Alex is telling herself not to worry. She reminds herself that it is Kara and Lena, and she had long since stopped asking about the complicated relationship between the two of them, three if you included Supergirl, so she tells herself that’s all it is, not that something has happened to Sam. 

Kara finally reappears in the doorway, taking a deep breath, but not saying anything. 

Alex tenses. “What is it?”

“Sam...” Kara starts, and Alex’s jaw clenches. “Reign... She’s gone. She- she took off.”

Alex stands, rubbing her forehead, frantic. “Shit. We have to find her. Does she know?”

“I don’t know. Alex, why don’t you go home, rest? We can handle this,” Kara suggests.

Alex paces. She can’t even think of going home, knowing that within the confines of her apartment that she’ll drink herself into oblivion with worry. 

“No, no. I need to be here. I need to find her. Where’s Winn? Did he get anything off the decoder?”

Kara sighs, and Alex sees in her stance a sense of defeat that looks worse than after any physical battle she’s lost. 

“I haven’t heard. Let me get him.”

A few minutes later, J’onn and Winn both gather into the lab beside Kara and Alex.

“Any luck with the crystal?” Alex questions, her voice rushed. “Any idea where Sam could have gone?”

Winn hesitates, and Alex realizes by his look what it’s meant for her to call her Sam. Not Reign, or the subject, or even by her full name as Kara had earlier, but Sam, Sam, Sam. 

Winn takes a breath. “It looked like a silica based compound, but that’s all I got. It fried the system before I got the full results. And Purity took it with her.”

“So you’re telling me we have nothing,” Alex’s says sternly, her frustration and anger and guilt rising like steam within her. “Are you serious?”

“Alex,” Kara interrupts, in that tone that says she’s going too far. But there’s no such thing, Alex thinks, because it’s Sam they’re talking about. 

“We have no idea where she could be?” Alex continues. “She’s just out there somewhere?” 

“Guys,” a voice calls out, and all four sets of eyes turn to see Mon-El standing in the doorway sheepishly. “You should turn on the TV.”

J’onn reaches for a remote and clicks it on. 

There’s a news reporter on the screen with the tag line “Breaking News” flashing across the bottom. She’s standing in front of National City General Hospital.

“Reports are coming out from multiple hospitals across National City of an outbreak. Emergency rooms are being flooded with patients with long waits. While the flu virus this year did hit record levels, this appears to be far different, with already a multitude of deaths being reported.”

“Pestilence,” Kara whispers.

“We need to get down there,” Alex replies quickly.

“Now hold on,” J’onn says, raising a hand to halt her. “We don’t know what this is, whether it could be contagious.”

“This might lead us to them,” Alex argues.

“It might, but it could also kill you, and we need you, Alex,” J’onn replies. “We’ll send agents on recognizance. In hazmat suits. They’ll collect samples. Agreed?”

Alex nods reluctantly. “Agreed.” 

J’onn dismisses himself and Winn, leaving Alex alone again with her sister.

The silence feels heavy, but still, it doesn’t feel real, any of this. Alex feels numb, not just mentally, but physically. Her limbs feel heavy. Her mouth is dry. Her stomach is rancid with acid. 

“How is this happening?” Alex finally says softly, meekly, taking a seat and letting herself sink into the chair. 

“I don’t know,” Kara replies, frowning. “I can’t believe it either.”

Alex sighs in frustration. “This is my fault. I told her I would figure out what was happening to her. I promised her.”

“We all did,” Kara replies softly. 

Alex shakes her head. This was on her. How had she let this happen, let her guard down, let herself be lulled into a false sense that everything was better because it’d been a few weeks without a black out, without a memory lapse? Why had she let herself stop digging relentlessly for an answer? 

The truth was that it was Alex that had failed Sam. 

“I wish I had known... about the two of you.”

Alex looks up and sees the hurt in Kara’s eyes. She knows Kara isn’t trying to make her feel more guilty, but it only adds to it.

“I should have told you. I just...”

Kara takes a seat beside her, legs spread, slouching, making her look so much less graceful and so much more Kara Danvers than her suit would suggest. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice that there was something there,” Kara continues. “I mean, when you came to CatCo together. I was just too self-absorbed to realize...”

“You weren’t. And we hadn’t. I mean, we weren’t.” Alex says, her words disjointed. She shakes her head. “I don’t even know what we are now.”

“I just wish I could been there for you.”

“You have been.”

“But if I’d known you were feeling this way, that you’d met someone... I mean, it’s Sam. She’s my friend.”

“I know. I just...” Alex takes a deep breath. She realizes that until now, she hasn’t spoken about Sam, about her feelings, to anyone. She’s kept it close to her heart, thinking it would somehow make it less real, that it would keep her safe, that it would protect her from ever feeling exactly what she was feeling right now. 

Alex leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees. “This thing between us, Kara, it came out of nowhere. I was terrified of what it meant. And I felt like if I told you, it would make it real. And I just didn’t feel ready for that yet. But now, now I do...and now this...?”

“You really care about her.”

“It’s just, when I’m with her, Kara, it feels, I don’t know, like it fits, like we fit. And Ruby too...” Alex tenses and sits up abruptly as she realizes that no one’s mentioned where Ruby is. “Oh god, Ruby. She was with Sam today.”

“It’s okay. She’s at Lena’s,” Kara reassures. “Ruby called her when Sam disappeared.”

“She did?” Alex’s brow furrows, surprised that even after speaking to her that very morning, Ruby had chosen to ring Lena when she needed help.

“Lena’s going to take her home tomorrow and stay with her there.”

Alex shakes her head. “No, it should be me. I should be with her. Besides, Lena can’t protect her.”

“You think she needs protecting? From Sam?” Kara asks nervously. 

“Reign. That is not Sam,” Alex counters firmly.

Kara only nods solemnly in reply.

—

Later, after much convincing from Kara, Alex decides to sleep. Her sister had tried and failed to persuade her to head home to rest in her own bed, but Alex couldn’t stomach being that far in case something happened, in case she got word, in case Sam turned up, as herself or as Reign. So they had compromised. Now, Alex made her way to the DEO’s sleeping quarters, a collection of rooms with simple bunks for night just like these 

Her eyes feel swollen, and she wonders how she’ll ever sleep when her mind is racing. 

Alex rounds a corner, deep in thought, and nearly runs right into a figure. 

It’s Winn. It’s late now, nearly half past 2am. Alex had seen the agents in CDC-labeled hazmat suits file out half an hour ago, and she wonders why he’s still in house. 

“Winn, hey. What are you still doing here?” 

“Just wanted to be here when the samples come back, so I can start analyzing. Hoping maybe it’ll give us a lead.”

Alex nods. “I’m gonna stay too. Can you wake me when they get back?”

“You sure you don’t want to go home?” Winn suggests. “I can call you if I get anything.”

“You sound like Kara. I’m fine,” Alex insists.

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I mean, it’s her, isn’t it?” Winn replies tentatively. “Sam, she’s the one you...”

Alex lowers her head, feeling suddenly exposed. She thinks of all the possible answers. The one she was seeing, the one she was with that night, the one she’d been falling for, the one she had ruined things with... The one...

Alex doesn’t finish his sentence though, doesn’t reply at all. She doesn’t need to. She knows her silence is the only affirmation needed. 

After a long beat, Alex finally lifts her gaze back to Winn, who is eyeing her with sympathy and sorrow and solace. 

“Do you remember how Kara said we need to save them instead of defeat them?” Alex starts, her voice pleading. “I need you to find a way, Winn. I need you to figure out a way that I can save her.”

Winn only nods. 

“Wake me when they get back,” Alex says before turning on her heel towards the bunks. 

—

When Alex crawls into the bed fully clothed, her mind is still on her conversation with Winn. Her thoughts keeps returning to that night, to that last time she saw Sam; she keeps replaying it over and over again in her head. 

She keeps wondering where they would be if she had done things differently, if she had stayed at Sam’s side, if they’d sat down to dinner and spent the evening in each other’s company. She wonders where it would have led, if Alex would have been there with her instead of Lena tonight, if she would have figured out what was happening to her, if she would have known where she was right now. 

The room is cold, and Alex pulls the sheet over her body. She shuts her eyes and tries to will herself to sleep. 

—

It’s early morning when Alex steers the DEO-issued black SUV into the Arias driveway. Sam’s Cadillac is absent, and the driveway is empty, meaning Lena hasn’t arrived yet with Ruby. Alex takes a deep breath as she pushes the gear to park and turns off the engine. 

She’s weary from lack of sleep. She had spent most of the night tossing and turning in the small firm bunk until Winn had stirred her at half past six. The sun was just coming up. Together, both silent, they mixed vials, preparing the samples for analysis. After he assured her that results would take hours if not days, she finally changed back into her street clothes to head home to shower and pack a bag. 

Now, hours later, she steps out of the SUV and grabs a duffel out of the backseat before locking up and walking up towards the front door. Alex drops her bag and takes a seat on Sam’s doorstep where she waits.

She and Kara had spoken to Lena early that morning, and it was clear they were all trying to hold it together. They had all once promised Sam they were Ruby’s family too, and so together, they’d made a plan. Lena had agreed to Alex staying with Ruby, swayed both by Alex’s merits and her insistence. They’d decided that Ruby could stay home today, but tomorrow, she would have to go to school. The last thing they needed to complicate things was a visit from a social worker. 

Minutes later, Lena’s black Tesla pulls into the driveway. Alex feels a mix of relief and anxiety when she sees Ruby step out of the car with her backpack. 

One thing they hadn’t detailed in their conversation was what to say to Ruby. According to Lena, Ruby had suspected that something was wrong, had taken note of Sam’s memory loss, but all of that was something that could be explained away with a diagnosis. Now Sam was missing. It had been nearly 24 hours with no sign of her, and every second felt like a time bomb ticking, so how would Alex convince Ruby everything would be okay if she still hadn’t convinced herself. 

Alex rises to her feet, and Ruby catches sight of her. She races up the walkway and runs straight into Alex’s arms. 

Ruby doesn’t say a word, just holds on tightly. Alex pulls her close and swallows hard and reminds herself how falling apart isn’t an option. 

She glances up to see Lena walking up. Her expression is somber. When Ruby finally releases her grasp on Alex, without a word, she moves past her and into the house. 

Alex’s gaze turns back to Lena.

“How is she doing?” Alex asks. 

“She’s hanging in there. She’s a tough kid. But she’s confused.”

Alex nods and looks back towards the front door where Ruby has just entered. “I bet.”

Lena takes a step forward and reaches her hand out, touching Alex’s forearm, drawing her attention. “How are you, Alex?”

Alex looks back, bewildered by the concern. 

“I don’t...” Alex shakes her head.

“Sam told me. About the two of you,” Lena clarifies. 

“Oh. There really isn’t much to tell,” Alex replies, averting her gaze. 

“That’s not how it seemed to me,” Lena continues. 

Alex looks back up, eyes narrowed with curiosity.

“She seemed quite smitten when we’d spoken about you.”

Alex’s mouth opens slightly to respond, but she can’t find the right words. 

“Anyway,” Lena continues. “I just wanted to know how you were holding up.”

Alex averts her eyes and shrugs. “I’m...fine,” she finally chokes out, and she realizes how much she’s been using those words, clinging to them like a lifeline, like if she repeats them again and again, it will make them true. 

“Alex, look, I know we’re not friends per say, but the two people I’m closest to in the world care an awful lot about you, which means so do I. So if you ever want to talk...”

Alex nods. “I’m good, thanks.” Alex turns and starts towards the front door before pausing and turning back. “Hey, Lena?”

Lena lifts her gaze and meets Alex’s eyes. 

“Was she scared?” Alex asks, her voice soft, tentative. 

Lena nods sadly. “Yeah..”

—

Alex steps inside and closes the front door. She can hear the shower running upstairs and heads into the kitchen to wait for Ruby to come back down. She clicks on the television while she waits and news images flash before eyes her again. 

Half hour later, she hears the stairs creak with Ruby’s weight, and she quickly changes the channel.

Ruby is quiet as she takes a seat on the couch beside Alex. She notes Ruby’s blood-shot eyes and knows she’s been crying. 

Ruby takes the remote and flicks the channel to reruns. They sit in silence for a long while. 

“It’s weird to be home on a school day,” she remarks finally. Her voice is flat. 

“Do you want to talk about yesterday?” Alex asks cautiously.

“Not really,” Ruby tells her, shaking her head. 

“You know you can call me, right?”

Ruby finally looks over at Alex. Her face is filled with fear and pain, and it strikes Alex like a knife in her chest. 

“My mom...” Ruby starts. “She said you weren’t going to be around anymore. That you were too busy for us.”

Alex’s heart sinks at the reminder of the gravity of her own mistake. 

“Oh...”

“Is that true?”

“Your mom and I, we had a misunderstanding. It was my fault, but I’m here,” Alex tells her, reaching out a hand and covering Ruby’s. “And I will always be here for you.”

Ruby’s face relaxes just enough ,and she sinks down into the couch, resting her head on Alex’s lap, head facing the television.

Alex runs her fingers through her hair, brushing it off of her cheek. She notices the way her face may not be all Sam, but pieces are. Her high cheekbones and the shape of her ears and her olive skin. Alex’s heart aches seeing Ruby hurting, and it makes her realize that she never knew she could love a kid so much that wasn’t hers, that she hadn’t raised, that she hadn’t seen teeter through her first steps or say her first word or cried when she dropped her off at her first day of school.

But she does, she loves this kid. 

—

That night, Alex orders pizza and puts on Stranger Things. They eat on the sofa. They don’t talk much. They definitely don’t talk about Sam. Alex wishes she knew what to say to comfort Ruby, to reassure her, but she’s still working on doing it for herself. 

Even when it starts getting late, far past Ruby’s bedtime, Alex doesn’t say anything about her needing to get to sleep. It’s not until Ruby is dozing that Alex nudges her softly and whispers, ‘Let’s get you to bed,’ and places a kiss on the top of Ruby’s head. Ruby trudges upstairs quietly while Alex picks up after them, gathering the almost empty pizza box and wrapping up the leftovers for tomorrow. 

Alex lingers in front of the fridge, eyeing the April calendar stuck to the front, looking over all of Ruby’s activities, carefully detailed in Sam’s handwriting, and it hits Alex again the void that Sam’s absence has left.

Alex thinks to pull out a bottle of wine, to pour herself glass after glass, to numb the pain, to dull the harshness of this reality, and she would, if she were home and alone, but she remembers how Ruby is upstairs, hows she’s scared and confused and that she’s her responsibility and that she owes it to Sam to hold it together. 

—

Later, Alex takes the steps upstairs slowly. It’s her first time on the upper level, and she never thought to ask Ruby where she should sleep. She walks past Ruby’s door, her name on the outside, to the next, a guest room turned make shift office for Sam with a desk in one corner and bookshelves lining the wall. She closes the door quietly and moves on past a linen closet and a hall bathroom before she reaches the last door, what she knows must be Sam’s bedroom. 

Alex turns the knob and pushes open the door. It makes a slight creek as it opens. The room is dark.

It’s Alex’s first time in Sam’s room, and it’s not the way she’d ever expected it to happen. Her eyes move around, taking in the simple taupe bed covers, the fabric head board, the art hanging on the walls. 

She moves to the side of the bed nearest the windows. She opens the blinds and streaks of moonlight cross the space. She steps towards the nightstand where she finds a framed photo of Sam with Ruby. She reaches for it and lifts it closer to her view. Sam’s arms are wrapped around her daughter from behind, smiles on both of their faces. Alex’s eyes linger on the image of Sam’s face. Her throat tightens. She feels her chest seize up. 

She sets the photo down. She reaches out and turns down the bed before sliding under the sheets. 

The pillow smells like Sam. Warm and rich, like amber and honey. 

And Alex feels herself finally break. She crosses her arms over her chest and begins to cry, big heaving sobs that wrack her body. She pulls the pillow against her face. She’s never felt so helpless. 

Moments later, when she hears a gentle rasp on the door, Alex freezes. She quickly wipes her tears from her face.

“Come in,” she calls out. 

The door creaks open and reveals Ruby standing in the doorway. 

“Alex?”

“Hi sweetie.”

“Can I sleep in here with you?” Ruby asks tentatively.

“Of course, kiddo. Come here,” Alex tells her, swallowing back her tears and motioning for her to come over. 

Ruby crosses the room and crawls into the opposite side of the bed, as Alex is sure she’s done hundreds, maybe thousands of times before with her mom. Alex lifts her arm and lets Ruby settle her head onto her shoulder. They’re quiet for a long stretch.

“Where do you think she is?” Ruby finally asks softly. It’s the first mention of Sam since Alex had arrived that morning.

“I wish I knew,” Alex whispers.

“Do you think she’s okay?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Alex tells her. If there is one thing that Alex is surviving on, it’s the assured belief that Sam is all right. She has to be, she thinks.

Ruby nods, looking at least a little comforted by Alex’s confidence. 

“I miss her so much,” Ruby finally whispers.

“Me too,” Alex replies, reaching her free arm to circle around Ruby and hugging her tightly. 

_Me too_ , she thinks.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re still reading, you’re the best and thank you. I promise the ending will be worth it.
> 
> —

The next morning, when Alex’s alarm starts, her eyes peel open, and for a moment, she’s forgotten where she is, forgotten why she’s not at home in her own bed, forgotten all that had transpired, until she looks over and sees Ruby asleep beside her, and her memory clears and the same sinking feeling returns.

Alex turns over and nudges Ruby awake.  
She groans in response.

“Do I have to go?” Ruby grunts.

“I wish you didn’t. I’m sorry,” Alex replies sympathetically. 

Ruby nods and pulls herself from bed, trudging out of the room and down the hall to her own.

Alex lingers in bed for a brief moment, collecting herself before finally making her way to the bathroom.

She pulls out a bag of toiletries and sets it on the table. Sam’s things are neatly organized on the counter. Her toothbrush sits in the holder. Her brush with a few stray dark hairs. A black and gold makeup bag. 

Alex stares at her reflection in the mirror. She imagines all the mornings Sam has gotten ready in this room, during her hair, applying her makeup, calling out to Ruby to hurry up before they’re late. It doesn’t feel real, doesn’t feel right, her not being here. 

Alex undresses quietly and turns on the shower. She steps in and lets the steaming water warm her skin. 

—

Later, Alex pulls Sam’s Cadillac into the drop off line outside Davis Middle School. Lena had had the foresight and wherewithal to assign a driver to procure the vehicle from the skating rink parking lot the day before and drop it back at the house. Alex figured keeping as many things familiar and consistent for Ruby would be for the best. At least, that’s what she remembered her own mother trying to do after they had lost their dad. 

“You have your lunch?” Alex asks.

Ruby lifts up the bag that Alex had packed for her that morning. Ruby had told her that she could just buy something from school, but Alex had insisted. 

“If you need anything, call me, okay?”

Ruby nods and leans over the console, wrapping her arms around Alex’s neck. Alex lifts her hand to the back of Ruby’s head and rubs her fingers through her hair. 

“Thanks, Alex,” Ruby whispers before pulling away and pushing the passenger door open to head to school.

—

Alex walks into the DEO not long after dropping Ruby at school. It’s calmer than she would have expected. She had expected bustling energy with all of the new developments, but the truth was, despite the news, they were in the exact same place as they had started two days ago. They were no closer to finding the worldkillers, to finding Reign despite knowing exactly who she was. 

Alex wanders into the lab, where Winn is crouched over a computer, an electron microscopic view of a viral particle blown up on the screen.

“What is it?” Alex asks, as she moves to his side. 

“Looks like your everyday flu virus to me, but I think this is more your forte than mine,” Winn admits, sliding over and letting Alex take center seat in front of the screen.

“We need to extract the viral genome so we can analyze the replication, the pathogenesis.”

Winn looks at her blankly. 

“How it spreads,” she explains, “Infects.”

Winn grimaces. “That could take a while.”

Alex glances up at the tv screen on low volume on the wall opposite them. There is a news report, and the headline reads, “Death tolls rises.”

“We don’t have a while. Do we have a list of affected patients?” 

“What for?” Winn wonders.

“If this is contagious, maybe we can look at similarities of those affected and find an epicenter, a source.”

Winn nods in understand. “A Pestilence?”

“Exactly.”

—

Alex spends the next several hours pouring over patient names and addresses, spreading out locations over a map of National City, trying to find a common link, but it doesn’t surface. She plots out the ED visits, confirmed cases, and despite the ends of the bell curve spreading over the city, she finds the center falls right on National City General Hospital. She narrows in on a group and finds that many are nurses, therapists, radiology techs, doctors; all are employed at NC Gen. It would make sense for the contagion to spread to staff before it could be contained, before patients could be quarantined, and Alex starts wondering if patient zero is really just that, a patient, and that they’re chasing a false lead, that this isn’t Pestilence at all. 

Before long, the clock reads half past three, and Alex grabs her coat. She’s never left work this early, but Kara assures her they have things handled. On her way to pick up Ruby, she stops at the grocery store and picks up ingredients for the one thing she can reliably cook. 

—

That evening, Alex unloads the groceries while Ruby starts her homework at the dining table. Alex lays out the ingredients for dinner and pulls out a pot from one of the cabinets. She lifts up one of the store-bought boxes of food and flips it over to read the back. 

“Should I be worried that you’re reading the box instructions for how to make pasta?” Ruby’s voice calls out in a teasing tone. 

Alex looks up to see Ruby eyeing her with amusement. 

“Oh yeah, smart aleck?” Alex teases back, making her way over to the dining table where Ruby sits. “And what are you over here scratching your head over?”

“Ugh. Math,” Ruby groans.

“Oh yeah? What’s so bad about math?”

“It’s so boring!”

Alex smirks as she slides into the seat beside Ruby.

“You know, math was always my favorite subject,” Alex tells her. 

“Ew, why?” Ruby asks with a frown. 

“I think I liked that the answer is either right or it’s wrong,” Alex explains. “There’s no in between. Most stuff in life isn’t that crystal clear, you know, but math? Math is pure old black and white.”

Ruby nods, a bemused smile on her face. “That was almost poetic.”

“Yeah?” Alex says with a playful self-satisfied smirk. 

“You’re still a really big nerd.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Ruby laughs. Alex stands from her seat. 

“Why don’t you help me with dinner and after I’ll help you with your math homework. Deal?” she offers her fist out.

Ruby fist pumps her. “Deal.”

—

Later that night, Alex and Ruby wash dishes together before Ruby heads up to bed. Alex flicks on the television and curls up on the couch with a blanket. She turns it to Nick at Nite, the same she’d watched with Sam that night here with her, back when everything was new, when things felt complicated in a way she would beg to have back now. 

Alex stays up much later than she knows she should, knowing that her body will hate her for it tomorrow when the alarm is blaring at 6am, but she can’t help but avoid going back to Sam’s bed for as long as possible. She pulls out her phone and flips through the text chain between her and Sam, the one that ended abruptly several days ago, much like their relationship.

Without thinking, Alex clicks the call button and soon her phone is dialing Sam. 

It goes straight to voicemail. Sam’s message is short and to the point, but Alex savors the sound of her voice, rich and smooth. Alex hangs up right after the beep sounds to leave a message.

Not a few seconds later, she dials her number again. 

—

By the time Alex crawls into Sam’s bed, it’s late, and she’s groggy, and she hopes it will bring her the reprieve of sleep. She sinks into the bed and buries herself in the sheets. She wonders where on Earth Sam could possibly be, if she understands what is happening, if she is suffering shuttered inside the prison of something evil. 

Curled up, with her phone still in her hand, Alex’s last thought before sleep comes for her is a gentle lofty hope that maybe, just maybe, Sam will call her back. 

—

Alex stirs slightly to the sound of a door creak. She rubs her eyes and glances at the clock to check the time. It’s blinking midnight.

“Ruby?” she calls out softly.

There is no answer, only silence. It’s dark. The moonlight she’d gone to sleep with is now absent. She sits up and sees a figure standing on this side of the closed door. Alex’s squints her eyes. It isn’t Ruby. 

Her hair is a tousled mess. Her clothes are disheveled. Her shoulders are slumped. Alex can’t even see her face, but she immediately recognizes the outline of her frame. 

“Sam,” Alex breathes, before darting out of bed and across the room. 

Sam’s breathing is ragged. She’s shaking. Alex pulls her into her arms. Sam feels limp. It takes her a moment to finally lift her arms and embrace Alex, but her grip is still loose, weak. 

“Alex,” Sam finally whispers, as if she’s only now recognizing her. 

“It’s okay, you’re home. Everything’s going to be okay,” Alex tells her. 

Alex finally releases her grasp and pulls back slightly. It’s then that she feels Sam’s mouth on hers. It takes Alex by surprise, but then she sinks in, relishing the feeling of Sam’s needy lips moving over hers. Sam’s arms cling to Alex’s waist. Alex’s hands move to Sam’s neck, grazing over her skin, fingers skimming the hair at the nape. Their movements are desperate, full of yearning. 

All of a sudden, she feels Sam pull away, the kiss ending as abruptly as it had started. The next sensation is a sharp pinch to her waist and the feeling of warm liquid running down her abdomen. 

Alex’s gasps, mouth dropping open as the pain settles in. She looks down and sees Sam’s hand with a knife tightly held, piercing her own body, blood pouring from the wound. Alex gasps and looks back up, but the Sam she knows is gone. There is no humanity left in her expression. Sam’s eyes flash red, and Alex feels the knife sink deeper. 

“No!” she calls out in agony.

Alex bolts upright in bed, her body wet with sweat, her hands shaking, breathless. The dawn sunlight is peering through the window. Her face is wet with tears. 

The clock reads 5:59am. A moment later, her alarm starts beeping. 

—

Days pass. It’s eerily quiet at the DEO. The radioactive tracers to track the worldkillers have been silent. There’s no sign of them. It feels like something is building, like something is coming. Alex can’t help but feel a sense of impending doom growing inside of her with each passing day of Sam’s absence. 

Alex and Ruby fall into a routine of school drop offs and dinner on the couch, a routine Alex never thought would have had long enough to develop. 

And at night, Alex continues to dream of Sam. It’s always the same images with only subtle variations. Alex wakes to Sam in the bedroom. They embrace. Sometimes they make it all the way to the bed, bodies tangled in the sheets. Alex always wakes up to the same feeling of a knife cutting through her flesh, twisting deep into her organs. 

It doesn’t matter how many times she dreams it or that she always knows how it will end, she always runs to Sam, always pulls her close, always tries to save her.

—

On Friday, Alex hunches over the specimens in the lab, eyes peering through a microscope. The genome extraction was successful. Alex has spent all morning studying the replication process, its virulence, with reverence. This virus is not of this world. She knows without a shadow of a doubt this is Pestilence.

Alex pulls back up the patient plot. New cases have been catalogued and mapped. She studies it, changing parameters, reviewing it again and again. She’s been staring at it for what seems like hours when finally, it hits her. 

“Shit,” she mutters, as she realizes it was right in front of her all along. Alex darts out of the lab to the DEO’s main room, where Winn is at a desk, Kara, Mon-El, and J’onn stand at the center around the large table. 

“It’s an employee,” Alex announces as she moves to them.

“Huh?” Kara says, her face twisting with confusion. 

“Pestilence,” Alex continues. “She works at NC Gen. It’s the epicenter. At first, I thought it was just because that’s where the first sick patient went, but it’s not.”

“We need to get down there,” Kara replies. 

“We need to find her before Reign does,” Alex insists. 

“It might be too late,” Mon-El answers. 

All eyes follow his gaze to the television monitors covering the walls. It’s an image outside NC General Hospital. 

Reign is standing outside the front entrance, where she has just landed. Civilians run in terrified panic in all directions, looking for safety. Reign turns and faces the direction of the camera, who zooms in onto her face.

Alex stares into the image of her face on the screen. It’s the first sighting of Reign in days. Of Sam. Her breath catches. 

Reign’s expression is cold and ruthless. Her head is cocked to one side, her stance aggressive. Alex’s gaze focuses in on the mask covering Reign’s face, on the dark eyes behind them. Reign’s eyes are stern, but whatever small hope Alex may have been holding onto deep inside that they were all wrong about Reign and Sam being one is obliterated, because those, those are Sam’s soft brown eyes. Alex swallows hard, her jaw clenching. 

She feels guilty that her first thought is relief to see Reign, because in some way, this means that Sam is okay. 

“Kara, Mon-El,” J’onn barks. “Get down there now.”

They nod and turn to leave when Alex steps forward, catching Kara’s arm.

“Kara.”

Kara spins to face her sister. There are a million things Alex wants to say. She wants to beg her, plead with Kara to not forget who is beneath those dark eyes and that black mask, behind those fists of steel that have shed so much blood, behind that ruthless, punishing stare. 

To please, please, please keep her safe. 

“It’s Sam,” is all Alex can choke out. 

Kara nods in understanding before she disappears in flight.

Moments later, Alex watches Kara and Mon-El land in front of National City General. Reign turns to face them. Behind them, a figure emerges from the sliding glass doors of the hospital, wearing a white lab coat, arms spread. Security rushes her and before they can reach her, the guards halt, grasping their throats and dropping to the ground. 

Alex feels her chest tighten, anxiety washing over her, and she can’t watch this, she can’t. She ducks her head and darts towards the front doors of the DEO and out into the sunlight. She leans against a wall, breaths heaving.

—

Kara and Mon-El return not much later, empty-handed, but relatively unscathed. They’ve already debriefed on the situation when Alex returns to the room. 

An image of the woman in the white coat is on the large screen. Below the image reads, it reads ‘Dr. Grace Parker.’

“A doctor?” Alex asks, studying the image. 

“Surgeon,” Kara confirms with a nod.

“You were right, Agent Danvers,” J’onn tells her. 

“A little too late,” she laments.

“We know who she is now, and that gives us power. Now let’s start digging.” 

They get nowhere, and Alex leaves the DEO that afternoon frustrated at the lack of progress. As she steers the Cadillac to Ruby’s school, the image of Reign’s eyes, of Sam’s eyes, is seared into her mind. 

—

Alex sits beside Ruby on the couch after they finish eating, dirty dishes and utensils piled up on the coffee table. It’s Friday night, and Alex had never imagined they’d been looking at the start of a another week without Sam. By Ruby’s silence, Alex senses she is feeling the same. 

“I thought she’d be home by now,” Ruby finally says softly. “She’s never been gone this long.”

Alex turns to face Ruby, drawing her leg up onto the couch and moving closer. She remembers how Lena had said that Ruby had suspected something was wrong, and she hadn’t ever wanted it to come to this, probing a twelve-year/old about her missing mother, but Alex is running out of leads and bringing Sam home feels even further away than when they had started. 

“I know you haven’t wanted to talk about this,” Alex starts carefully. “But can you tell me about the other times?”

Ruby nods and takes a moment to collect her thoughts. 

“She said she was going on a trip, but after, she acted like it never happened. She had said she was going to get answers. I thought it had to do with her... her powers.”

Alex’s eyes narrow. “Powers?” she asks.

“At the waterfront, the day we met you, she lifted this huge metal bar off of me. She told me it was just adrenaline, but...” Ruby’s voice trails off. 

Alex reaches out and sets her hand on Ruby’s to reassure her. “You can tell me.”

“She was... seeing things too. She tried to say it was a nightmare, but I know she was awake.”

Alex nods, pondering what Ruby is explaining. Had Sam started to suspect something was happening to her? Are those the answers she’d been looking for? But why wouldn’t Sam tell her if all of these strange things were happening to her? 

“When your mom went away, when she said she was going on the trip, when was that?”

“Right before Christmas.”

Alex nods. 

Ruby’s eyes fill with tears. “She’s going to come home, right?”

“She is...she is...” Alex says, pulling Ruby in to hold her tightly. 

—

After Ruby turns in, Alex lingers downstairs on the sofa, ruminating over her words. 

Alex thinks back to Reign’s first appearance, to the night the symbol appeared carved out in the field. She remembers that night so clearly. Just days before Christmas. Kara’s apartment. The party. Christmas lights and eggnog and mistletoe. 

Sam and Ruby had arrived late. She remembers how Sam had appeared in the doorway, flustered in that way that Alex had now come to find familiar and endearing. She remembers how she had thought briefly that Sam had looked more beautiful than ever, far more than Alex had ever cared to notice before that night. She remembers how she had escorted Ruby away, and that later on that night, Sam had flashed her a dopey half-drunk grateful smile from across the room that had made Alex’s heartbeat skip in a way that she had chosen at the time to shove down deep inside. Looking back, she recognizes that her feelings had first started all the way back then. 

But then she remembers how two days later, on Christmas Eve, Reign and Kara had fought for the first time. Alex remembers the anxiety she had felt seeing Kara leave for the fight. She remembers how Reign had tossed Kara around like a rag-doll, how every blow has left her battered and bleeding, how she had left Kara for dead. 

The disparity between those two events even now, knowing the truth, still makes it hard to believe that Sam and Reign are one and the same, but the timing fits.

Something had happened that trip. 

Alex knows that it must have been the turning point, that it delineates the before and after, the splitting into Reign and Sam, that it change had skewed Sam’s memories, erased all of those moments that Ruby remembered so clearly, those clues to Sam’s identity. And she knows that trip must have triggered Sam’s transformation. 

But where had she gone?

All of a sudden, a thought is lit in Alex’s mind. She grabs the keys to the Cadillac and moves from the couch to the front door. She steps outside into the chilly night air and crosses the yard to the car in the driveway. 

Alex unlocks and pulls open the driver door, sliding into the driver’s seat. She places the key in the ignition and turns it halfway until the interior lights flash on and music emanates from the radio. 

She taps the touch screen until the navigation opens. 

“Please, Sam, please,” she whispers. 

She frantically starts scrolling through the history, past various addresses around National City, past Kara’s address and Lena’s, past her own, until finally...

She freezes. Alex’s eyes fix on the entry.

1450 Chestnut Road, Oak Park, California

Oak Park... Sam’s home town.

Alex reaches for her phone and dials a number. 

“Lena, it’s Alex. I need you to stay with Ruby the next couple of days.”

—

That night, when Alex crawls into bed, for the first time in over a week, she feels something other than defeat. This discovery is the first glimpse of possibility, the first development to bring her closer to finding Sam, to bringing her home. She doesn’t know where tomorrow will take her, so she wills herself to sleep, knowing she will need her rest. As she pulls Sam’s pillow against her, as she breathes in the fading scent of her, as her eyes finally drift shut, Alex feels this small faint lightness filling her that she can only identify as hope.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter should be up pretty soon also. Thanks to everyone still following along.
> 
> —

Alex stands in the doorway of the Arias house, Ruby beside her. It’s mid-morning, and the May sun is already shining bright. Ruby is still in her pajamas; Alex is dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, her badge at one hip, her gun saddled at the other. 

Lena’s Tesla pulls into the driveway and parks. They watch as Lena steps out and heads towards them at the front door. Though it’s 9am on a Saturday, Lena is in slim navy dress, her hair smoothed back and secured in a low bun. 

“Do you really have to go?” Ruby laments to Alex with a frown. 

“You remember how I told you once that it’s my job to help people? I’m going to find your mom, Ruby. I’m going to bring her home. I promise,” Alex assures her. 

Ruby nods, and Alex pulls her in for a tight hug just as Lena reaches them.

_Thank you_ , Alex mouths to Lena, who offers a small sympathetic smile in return.

—

Alex has been driving down the highway for nearly two hours. She’s far outside the National City boundaries now, and the city has slowly melded into suburbs and then the country. 

Alex turns down onto a two lane state road, following the directions on the navigation, leading her to Sam’s hometown. The road is empty, nary a passing car. Along the sides of the road are fields after fields of crops. Despite the fact that spring has arrived, they look like they would in the dead of winter, brown and shriveled. 

The radio is turned on at a low volume; the sound crackles with static. You can barely make out the news report discussing “widespread crop death” and “impending food shortages.” The static grows louder, drowning out the voices, and Alex reaches her hand up and clicks the radio off, unwilling to hear the reminder of what she already knows to be true. The threat is growing. 

When Alex finally reaches Oak Park, it’s still sparsely populated. Wide open undeveloped fields rest between houses. She steers onto Chestnut Road and finally pulls up in front of a simple white farmhouse sitting just up a small hill. She pushes the gear into park and takes a deep breath.

—

Alex’s knuckles rasp on the front door, and she hears shuffling inside before finally the door swings open, revealing an older women with short grey hair, and Alex thinks how she doesn’t look like someone who’d disown their kid. 

“Can I help you?” the woman asks. 

“Agent Danvers, FBI,” Alex says, flashing her badge. “Can we have a word?”

The woman looks at her with doubt. “You sure you’re at the right house?”

“Are you Patricia Arias?”

“Sure am. What’s this about?” the woman replies suspiciously. 

“Can we talk inside?” 

Patricia motions Alex inside, her eyes taking in the space. The trappings are simple, homey, warm. Alex thinks of Sam, much younger, more credulous, maybe less jaded, growing up in this space, feeling all at once confused and hopeful, not ever knowing what was harboring inside of her. 

“Your daughter is Sam Arias?” Alex inquires as she moves towards a wall covered in framed photos. In sharp contrast to Sam’s home where all the photos of her start at age eighteen, these all end around the same age. Alex takes in the images. Sam as a toddler, eyes wide and bright, beaming into the camera, practically a mirror image Ruby at that age. Sam school aged, in a ballet outfit, pirouetting across a stage. Sam, a pre-teen, with cropped hair, stuck in that awkward pubertal stage, looking somewhere between innocence and adulthood. 

“Adopted daughter,” Patricia clarifies in a way that Alex finds contemptible. 

“How did you come to adopt her? What were the circumstances?” 

Patricia shrugs nonchalantly. “I found her. She’d been... abandoned. No one claimed her, so the courts gave me custody.”

Alex wonders how much of it is truth, if she’s leaving parts out, if Sam arrived like Kara had, in a pod in a field, alone and afraid.

“Have you seen or spoken to your daughter recently?” Alex asks, her eyes moving from the row of photographs and back to Sam’s mother. 

“No, no. Samantha and I aren’t exactly what you’d call close.”

“I’ve heard,” Alex remarks, unable to hide her disdain for a woman who would abandon Sam when she needed her most. 

Patricia’s eyes narrow at Alex. 

“Can I see your badge again?”

Alex pulls it out and hands it to Patricia, who studies it for a moment before finally handing it back. 

“What’s this got to do with?” Patricia asks. 

“Your daughter is missing,” Alex tells her. 

“Oh...” Patricia replies, nodding as she processes. 

Alex waits for more, but she doesn’t say anything else. 

“You don’t seem all that concerned. Or surprised,” Alex remarks, her voice laced with irritation at this woman’s seeming indifference. 

“Where’s the little one? The kid? What’s her name...”

“Ruby,” Alex answers firmly. 

“That’s right,” Patricia replies with a nod of recognition.

“She’s in custody.”

“Is that why you’re here? Do you need me to come get her?” Patricia asks. 

“No, that’s not why I’m here,” Alex replies, trying to keep her seething anger at bay. “When did you see your daughter last?”

“Oh, it’s been years,” Patricia answers quickly. 

Alex nods disbelievingly. “So she wasn’t here just a few months ago?”

“Nope.”

“I have evidence to show that she drove here on December 18th.”

“Must not have been home. Look, I don’t know where Samantha is, but I got errands to run,” Patricia tells her curtly, already reaching for her purse and keys. “You need anything else?”

Alex sighs. “That’s all, ma’am.”

—

Alex lingers in the car as it idles, watching Sam’s mother get into her beat up old sedan and drive off. She sighs in frustration, feeling disappointed and hopeless all over again. She thought this would lead her closer to Sam, was so convinced this would give her some clue to how to find her, save her, bring her home, but after Patricia had tersely escorted her out, she had realized she was empty handed. 

Alex taps her foot, her eyes still on the simple white house on the hill, thinking, knowing she can’t just give up, knowing she can’t return back to that house without Sam.

Finally, Alex turns off the ignition again and steps out of the Cadillac. 

—

The back door is locked, not that she expected otherwise, but it’s a minor obstacle. With a quick jimmy of the lock, it’s open, and Alex enters. The door leads to the kitchen, which Alex weaves through until she reaches the staircase, climbing them two at a time until she reaches the top. She makes her way down the hall. Lining the wall are Sam’s school pictures, from kindergarden through 11th grade, her senior photo notably absent. Sam had already left by then, off on her own, probably scared and lonely. It had taken all of Alex’s will not to confront Patricia Arias about kicking her daughter out, putting Sam out on the streets, young and pregnant. Alex can’t imagine what kind of mother could do that, blood or not. 

Alex finally stops at the first door on the left, where Sam’s name is still written on a hanging yellow sign, and pushes the door open. 

Alex’s eyes take in the space. It’s like a relic frozen in time at the exact moment Sam had left almost 14 years ago. The bedding is a deep turquoise, the wallpaper is a patterned yellow. There are magazine cutouts taped to various parts of the wall. In the corner, a tall dresser is covered in trophies and medals; Alex crosses over to them, lifting one with her fingers and noting the engraving.

2004 California State High School  
Track & Field Championship  
1st place  
400 meters

She steps over to a book case where her fingers graze over weathered covers, Lord of the Flies and Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit 451 and The Handmaid’s Tale, Slaughterhouse Five and Gatsby. A worn copy of Kerouac’s On The Room. A book of Cummings poems. Alex feels her heart swell. Each title feels like unearthing a new piece of Sam, of this woman she has come to yearn for more and more, even in her absence. 

Sam had never told her she was so fond of literature, but she doesn’t find it surprising, knowing Sam would like delving into the richness of life’s intricacies when she’d been trying so hard to understand herself. Maybe it had started all the way back then. As for herself, Alex liked to read now and then, but her mind was always drawn to science, to facts, to inquiry and discoveries that could be proven again and again. It felt solid and constant. It was ironic that now Sam was the very reason she couldn’t put Reign in a box as she had always tried to do, couldn’t categorize her as just a villain who needed to be defeated. 

Alex reaches for a copy of “You Can’t Go Home Again” and pulls it from the shelf; she moves over to the bed where she takes a seat. She flips through the pages of the book, and she wonders if when Sam read this, when she marked up the margins and dog-eared the pages, if she already knew of the impossible decision she would make, if she already knew how true those words were. 

Alex sets down the book and lies down, her head meeting the pillow, and lifts her eyes to the ceiling, trying to blink back tears. Being in this space, surrounded by Sam, the ache for her, the longing, the need to bring her home is immeasurable. 

After a few minutes, Alex finally rises. She rustles around Sam’s desk, looking for clues, for something that would indicate where she could have gone, where she might be, but there’s nothing. Alex crosses to the window and gazes out.

_Where are you, Sam?_ she thinks.

It’s then that she notices a structure behind the house in the distance, a worn down old barn. 

—

Alex enters cautiously. The barn is dark and smells of mildew and rotting wood. Her feet crunch on the ground as she steps forward. She spots a light cord dangling and tugs it, illuminating the space just enough to reveal a structure in the center covered with an old dirty sheet. Her eyes narrow as she approaches.

When she reaches it, her hand pulls on the cloth, and it falls to the ground. In front of her is a pod, distinctly Kryptonian. Alex remembers Kara’s, remembers how it similarly sat in their own garage when she’d first arrived, hidden away. Alex runs her hand over the metal, it’s cold and dark. Her eyes flick across it until they settle on an engraving on the side, the same that first appeared all over the city at Reign’s arrival, the same one carved out on her chest, the one Kara could never translate. 

Alex takes a deep breath; she knows that Sam may not have known what she had gone looking for, but this must have been what she’d found. 

Alex pulled out her cell and races back to the car. She dials the number, and it rings twice.

“Howdy,” Winn’s voice answers cheerily. 

“Winn, I need your help.”

“Whatever happened to saying hello first,” he replies jokingly.

“I need you to pull the GPS on Sam’s vehicle,” Alex says, ignoring his remark. 

“Why? Is it missing?”

“No, I have it.”

“Not following,” he replies in confusion. 

“I need the coordinates from several months ago,” she says, her voice rushed as she pulls open the driver’s side door of the Cadillac and slides inside, slamming it behind her. 

“Um, again, begs the question, why? You know what? I don’t want to know,” he decides. “What dates?” he asks instead. 

“December 18th to 20th.”

“You got it, boss.”

“And Winn?”

“Yep?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” she says firmly. 

“You know, nothing good ever starts with those words,” Winn replies. 

—

The Cadillac slows to a stop in the middle of the dry desert. Alex had turned off the main road miles ago, following the coordinates Winn had pulled from Sam’s car and wondering why the hell this is the place she had come. 

Alex parks the car and turns off the ignition before stepping out into the hot sun. She lifts a hand to shield her eyes, but there is nothing in sight besides packed beige sand, scattered rocks, tan mountains in the background, and blue skies. 

She slips off her leather jacket and tosses it onto the front air before slamming the door shut. She marks the coordinates on her phone for the car and begins walking. 

An hour later, Alex is in the middle of an open desert field, the sun beating down on her pale skin, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She pulls out her cell phone to call Winn to berate him for getting the location wrong, but there are no service bars. She rubs her forehead in frustration and wonders whether she should turn back. Night will fall soon, and she knows that with its arrival, the temperatures will drop. Instead, she continues walking. 

Another half hour later, Alex’s pace slows to a stop as she sees the structure on the horizon, dozens of rock beams jetting out of the ground. It’s dark and imposing, and for a moment, Alex thinks she should recede, to go for backup, but Sam could be just inside, and so she knows it isn’t even a choice. 

—

Alex pads stealthily at the corner of the fortress, high ceilings above, black rocks underneath her feet. As she rounds a corner, she catches sight of them.

The three women stand in a circle, arms bent, palms facing each other. It takes a moment for Alex to realize that they aren’t touching, but that there are waves of energy surging between their hands, like they are feeding off each other’s power. 

Their eyes are closed. They are chanting. It’s Krytonese, but not the dialect Kara speaks, not the one that as girls Kara would teach to Alex after they were supposed to be asleep in bed, the one they would use like a secret language only they knew. This is different, older, more primitive. 

“There is an intruder,” a voice interrupts. 

Alex’s gaze shifts, and it’s only then she sees the hologram of a woman in a dark robe. All eyes shift to Alex. 

It takes no more than a split second, and Reign is in front of her, flanked on each side by Purity and Pestilence. They eye her like prey. 

Reign stares straight at Alex, who is frozen in place, eyes locked on Reign. 

Alex thinks of all of their previous encounters. Watching Reign tear Kara apart on the center of National City. Head to head in the bank, Reign wrapping a chain around Alex’s leg and the sound of her bone cracking in two. Marching towards her in the subway, Reign tossing her aside like a rag doll, just before her foot presses down on Alex’s chest, collapsing her lungs until she can’t breathe.

But now they are face to face again, a few feet away, Sam’s soft brown eyes staring harshly at her from behind a mask without an ounce of humanity. Alex’s recognizes the angle of her jaw and the length of her neck and the curve of her hips. It is Sam’s body, she reminds herself, but not her mind, not her heart. 

“Sam...” Alex whispers. 

Reign’s eyes narrow suspiciously. 

“You. The one who fights with Supergirl. Come,” Reign commands, her voice distorted in that trademark way. 

Alex steps forward slowly. 

“What have you come here for?” Reign asks. 

Alex swallows hard, but she can’t formulate words. 

The corner of Reign’s mouth turns up into a smirk. “You’re looking for her, aren’t you?” she asks derisively. 

Alex takes another step forward, boldly, impulsively. 

“Sam, I know you can hear me. It’s Alex.”

Reign scoffs. “That mortal. Samantha is gone. And I have you to thank for that.”

“No, Sam. I know you’re there,” Alex pleads. “You’re strong, Sam. You can fight this.”

“She _was_ strong,” Reign says with a snicker. “In fact, you’d made her stronger. Helped her keep me away. But those days are over. There’s no strength left. And you did that,” Reign smiles again smugly. “You broke her.”

Alex’s face falls with the realization, with understanding. “No...” Alex laments softly, but she knows it’s true. 

“Give up. She has,” Reign sneers. 

Alex collapses onto her knees in defeat. Purity and Pestilence move to Alex’s sides, grabbing her arms, their grips firm, sending a flash a pain through Alex, but she doesn’t even try to fight them. 

“No,” Reign says sternly, her voice echoing through the space, drawing the gaze of her counterparts. “Let her suffer. It’s a far worse punishment than death.”

Alex looks up, and her eyes meet Reign’s again. Their eyes lock for a long moment before she feels herself thrown to the ground. When she looks up again, she is alone. 

—

When Alex returns home, it’s early morning; her eyes are red, and her face is stained with tears. She has spent the hours-long drive home ruminating over Reign’s words. 

Sam had given up. Sam was broken. Sam was gone.

And she was the one to blame. She was the one who’d hurt her, who’d weakened her, who had made her vulnerable. 

The guilt had become so overwhelming until she could hardly see through the stream of tears rushing down her face. 

When Alex pushes open the apartment door and steps inside, it’s dark and quiet. It’s been days since has been here. She drops her gun on the side table, kicks off her shoes and moves to the bed, where she collapses, fatigued and empty and destroyed. She curls up against the pillow and begins to sob. 

—

When Alex sleeps, even though she’s no longer in Sam’s room, it’s the same dream. Alex stirs to the sound of Sam opening the door. She darts across the room, pulls Sam into her arms. Their mouths meet, and they move to the bed. Sam crawls on top of Alex, their hands desperate and needy, clothes discarded quickly. 

Their turn onto their sides, facing one another. Alex runs her palm down Sam’s side, following the curve of her body down past her hip, gripping her thigh and pulling her leg forward to drape over her own. 

Sam pulls away suddenly, and Alex already knows what happens next. 

Except this time, it’s different. 

She feels Sam tense in her arms, feels her body tighten, sees her eyes widen with fear. Alex’s eyes readjust, and it’s then that she sees the knife in her own hands, sees it plunged into Sam’s neck, blood flowing from the wound onto Alex’s hand. Her own eyes widen in horror. She lets go, but it’s too late as she sees the life begin to drain from Sam’s face.

“No!” Alex screams, sitting up in bed, breath heaving, sweating, crying. 

—

Alex steps into the bathroom and leans over the sink. She looks up at her reflection, bleary-eyed and worn. She closes her eyes and hangs her head. She turns on the faucet to clean her face. Just before she reaches her hands in, she opens her eyes.

Her mouth drops open slightly in shock at the sight. Instead of clear water, there is blood running from the faucet, thick and red, swirling towards the drain. She quickly turns it back off, knowing already that it’s another manifestation of Pestilence.

Alex crosses the apartment to the kitchen where she pulls a bottle of whiskey and a glass from the cupboard. She needs something to dull the pain, to quell this ache, to rid her of the image of Sam’s face, life disappearing from her eyes. She pours a glass and swallows it. She pours another and takes another swig. 

A bang on the door draws Alex’s attention. She takes her time crossing the room, and another bang resounds before she reaches it. 

She finally pulls the door open to find Kara on the other side. She’s in blue jeans and a tucked in button-down blouse, trademark Kara glasses perched on her nose.

“Thank god! You’re alive!” Kara exclaims as she bursts through the door.

“Come in?” Alex replies as she closes the door behind her sister. The blinds are drawn and the apartment is dim. Alex realizes she doesn’t have any idea what time is it or what day. Is it Monday already? Is she late for work? She takes another sip, downing the last draw of whiskey from her glass, and wonders why it even matters, what she is even still fighting for.

“Where have you been, Alex? Lena said you asked her to come stay with Ruby. I’ve been trying to call you for the last day,” Kara demands, gesturing emphatically. “And why is it so dark in here?” she adds, moving to the blinds and tearing them open, letting in a beam of sunlight that burns Alex’s eyes. 

“I went to look for Sam,” Alex says apathetically, setting her glass down on the kitchen counter. 

“What? Where?”

“I tried to retrace her steps,” Alex answers with a shrug. “I thought it would lead me to her...or to Reign.”

“And? Did it?” Kara asks, eyes wide and expectant. 

“I found her fortress.”

“What!? Was she there?” Kara demands, incredulous. 

Alex nods, the liquor numbing the impact of Kara’s reaction. 

“Are you crazy, Alex?! What were you thinking? You went there with no backup? She could have killed you!” Kara exclaims. 

“I know,” Alex says softly. 

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t she?”

Alex frowns. “Thanks.”

“No, I just, it must mean...” Kara starts, fumbling over her words. “There must be a reason,” she insists 

“Yeah, she said she wanted me to suffer,” Alex answers. 

“That doesn’t make any sense. Reign isn’t about suffering; she’s about cold, hard justice,” Kara disputes. 

Alex shrugs, growing tired of the conversation, Kara’s voice grating on her fatigue and resignation. 

“So maybe she’s expanded her modus operandi.”

“Or maybe Sam is still in there, and she wouldn’t let Reign kill you,” Kara counters. 

“But she isn’t, Kara,” Alex insists, her annoyance building. “Think about it. She’s never been Reign for this long. Not even close. Her memory lapses were hours, a day at most. It’s been a week already, okay? Sam’s not coming back.”

Kara’s face falls, her energy stills, her voice quiets. “Don’t say that.”

“Don’t look so guilty,” Alex snaps. “This is all my fault.”

“How can you think that, Alex?

“Because it’s true, Kara!”

“Alex, you can’t give up.”

“I can.” 

“No, we can figure this out, find a way. Winn’s been working on it. And now that we know where the fortress is, we can stake it out.” 

“Can you just stop, Kara?” Alex raises her voice a notch. 

“They’re going to go back there at some point...” Kara continues. 

“Just stop!” Alex shouts, and Kara goes silent, stunned. “Can you please just go?”

Kara nods and backs away towards the door. Alex doesn’t even look up to see her leave, just waits for the sound of the door clicking shut. 

Alex pours another glass of whiskey and takes a sip, feeling it burn down her throat, feeling it numb the ache just a little more.

She’s not sure how much time has passed, but she is almost through another glass when there is a knock again. Alex slams the glass down and marches to the door. 

“Seriously, Kara, why can’t you just leave me-“ Alex shouts as she reaches for the door and pulls it open. She freezes at the sight of the figure standing sheepishly in the hallway on the other side. “Alone...” 

“Hey, Danvers,” Maggie says, awkwardly shoving her hands in her pocket. 

“What are you doing here?” Alex’s brow pinches. 

“Can we talk inside?”

Alex moves out of the doorway to let her in. 

“I’m sorry for just showing up unannounced. Especially after...” Maggie’s voice trails as she references the night at the restaurant. “It’s just, I used to be on the inside. I used to know what was going on when weird shit started happening in the city, but now, I don’t. And people are dying, everything is dying, and this morning, I wake up to my faucet flowing blood. I just need to know. I need to know what the fuck is happening,” she says, her voice laced with panic. 

“Can’t you tell?” Alex replies smugly, her words slurring slightly. “The world’s ending. Typical day at the office.”

Maggie eyes her skeptically. “Are you being facetious?”

“Do you remember how you told me to never call you? To never contact you? ‘Cause I remember it very clearly,” Alex says, swaying her finger in the air with one hand as she downs her glass with the other.

Maggie lowers her head. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“How’d you know I’d be here?”

“I didn’t. I stopped by a couple times already...earlier this week,” she explains, shifting her weight uncomfortably. “You weren’t here.”

“I’ve been at Sam’s,” Alex tells her, before considering what it would imply. She thinks to clarify, but the truth is that she’s too numb to care and what does she owe Maggie anyway after the words she’d spoken to her, with the audacity of her to show up here without warning.

“Oh. Right...” There is a flash of pain that spreads across Maggie’s face, before she tries to push it away. “Look, Alex, I also wanted to clear the air. I shouldn’t have said what I said. About you. And...and Sam. I just... it hurt...to see you with her. I guess I knew eventually you would meet someone, but I just didn’t expect it to be so soon, to be someone I knew, someone you knew before we...” 

Alex stands frozen in place, unsure how to reply, so instead, she stays silent. 

“If...” Maggie starts. “If she’s what makes you happy, then I want that for you. I want you to be happy, Alex,” she finally forces out. 

“I want to be happy too,” she replies mournfully as she pours another finger of scotch. 

“Are you drinking, Alex? It’s 9am.”

Alex swallows another sip of the amber liquor. “Is it?”

“Did something happen? Is it Kara? Is she okay?” Maggie asks frantically as she takes two steps forward towards Alex. She lifts her hand and tries to take the drink from Alex’s grasp.

Alex reacts instinctively to her proximity with a look disapproval and pulls away quickly, the flight response of self-preservation kicking in. She steps backward another step, widening the distance, and Maggie tries to hide her expression, but she’s clearly hurt. Things have clearly changed, shifted irrevocably, and Alex realizes it as much as Maggie expression similarly reveals. They don’t belong to each other anymore. Whatever uncertainty Alex might have had their last encounter has since vanished. Maggie was no longer the one keeping Alex up at night, the one filling her thoughts, the one holding her heart in her hands. 

“Kara’s fine,” Alex tells Maggie, her voice cold and austere. 

“Then what is it? What’s going on with you?” Maggie begs.

Alex feels her eyes well up again with tears, feeling the weight of this reality sinking in once again. She turns and sets down her glass on the counter, averting her gaze from Maggie. 

Alex takes a deep breath, wondering how much she can even still share with someone who is no longer on the DEO’s clearance list, wondering how much she even wants to tell Maggie. 

“It’s Sam...” Alex finally says softly, weakly. “Reign has her.”

“Oh... I...” Maggie starts, but she is clearly speechless. “Wow.”

“Yeah...” Alex replies.

“I don’t understand. Why? Is this to hurt you? Is she targeting you?”

“It’s complicated,” Alex says as she slides onto the barstool at her kitchen counter. 

“So what are you doing here then?“

Alex shrugs, wipes a stray tear from her cheek. 

“Come on, the Alex Danvers I know doesn’t wallow.”

“You don’t know anymore,” Alex replies, shaking her head.

“Well, what I do know is that you care about her. I could see it, the way you looked at her. You used to look at me that way,” Maggie says sadly. “You can’t just give up.” 

“I can’t save her...”

“I don’t believe it. If anyone can save her, it’s you.”

Alex finally lifts her eyes to meet Maggie’s, and in them, she finds a level of empathy she hadn’t been expecting, and she starts to think that maybe Maggie is right. Alex opens her mouth, to try to formulate a thank you, but all of a sudden, the room begins to darken. 

“What the hell...” Maggie exclaims. 

Alex follows Maggie’s gaze past her to the window and sees what she is staring at. 

Outside, it’s turned black as night. Alex’s eyes squint at the sudden darkness as she moves to the window, Maggie close behind her. They look up at the sky to see the sun covered, with just a narrow sliver of light left that quickly disappears behind the eclipse. 

“I didn’t hear anything about an eclipse happening...” Maggie mutters. 

“It’s them.”

“Them?”

“Worldkillers...”

Alex’s cell rings. She pulls it from her back pocket and glances at the caller ID. It’s Kara. She answers quickly. 

“Alex? Have you seen this?” Kara asks, her voice shaky. “You need to get down here,” she insists.

“I know. I’ll be there.”

—

After Maggie departs, after a brief explanation from Alex of the events transpiring and after an even briefer goodbye and maybe even some unspoken forgiveness, for themselves and for each other, Alex makes herself a cup of coffee and downs a couple of glasses of water. She waits until her mind sobers enough to walk back into the DEO ready for a fight. 

She knows deep down that the end is close on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> And I promise Sam will be back next chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

When Alex arrives at the DEO, the team has already gathered. They’ve been conversing, but it’s clear they’ve been waiting for her arrival. 

“Thank you for joining us, Agent Danvers,” J’onn says with a nod and an edge of disappointment, reminding Alex just how disapproving her actions were. “Could you please debrief us on your... encounter?” 

Alex shakes her head. “I think we should just get down to the fortress.” 

“We have. Winn shared with us the coordinates you had asked him for,” J’onn explains.

Alex looks over at Winn who flashes a look of guilt and apology. 

“And?”

“We sent a recognizance team,” J’onn continues. “Fortress is gone.”

“Gone?” Alex asks. 

“No trace of it. So please, the floor is yours.”

Alex nods and steps forward. 

She takes the next few minutes describing the fortress, how it jutted out of the ground, how it was the opposite of Kara’s, how instead of steely blue ice it was all heat, how instead of emanating light, there was only darkness. 

She doesn’t talk about Reign’s words, about how she spoke of Sam, of her insistence that Sam was gone, because Alex has decided she doesn’t want to believe any of it. She won’t. Instead, she focuses on the facts. 

“The three of them,” she explains. “They fed off each other. Their energy. It was like they gained power just by being in each other’s presence.”

“So we need to find a way to keep them apart,” Kara replies. “It’s the only shot we have.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” Mon-El remarks, referencing just how easily Reign had procured Pestilence from the hospital. 

“There’s enough of us,” Imra chimes in.

“We still don’t have a plan for how to save them,” Alex interjects, lifting her hand to redirect the conversation. 

“Winn’s been working on something,” Kara replies.

All eyes turn to Winn who steps forward. 

“It’s called black kryptonite,” Winn starts. 

Alex shakes her head. “Black kryptonite? What is that?”

Kara squints her eyes as she wracks her memory. “I think I’ve heard of that. From Clark.”

“Rumor has it that it has the power to split beings into their two selves,” J’onn explains. “One good, one evil. One light, one dark. One human, one demon...”

“One Sam and one Reign,” Alex finishes, her voice just a breath, laced with cautious hope.

“Not to play devil’s advocate,” Min-El pipes in. “But this is a bioengineered weapon from Krypton. Why would we think there’s a ‘human,’” he adds with air quotes, “to split off?”

“There is. I know her,” Alex argues, stepping forward to assert her point. “We know her,” she adds, catching eyes with Kara who gives her a small encouraging nod.

“But where’s the proof?” Mom-El continues. “We’re betting everything on this.”

“Mon-El,” Kara chastises. 

Alex shakes her head. That day. That morning in the L-Corp lab. That first time she had spent any time with Sam. Sam’s uneasiness. The lollipop. And then, that night, sitting beside her as she confessed to Lena and Kara. Later, in her car, when she promised Sam she wasn’t alone. Their first kiss. It all feels so long ago now.

“I drew her blood,” Alex tells them. 

“I’m not following,” Mon-El replies argumentatively. 

“Let her explain,” J’onn says firmly. 

“Reign is like Kara, okay? She’s Kryptonian. She’s practically invincible to any one of us, us humans at least. Well, I can’t take Kara’s blood because I can’t puncture Kara’s skin.” 

J’onn nods proudly. “But you could Sam’s.” 

“Easily. She’s human. Or at least something separate from Reign. Something changes, physically, mentally

“So we have this black kryptonite?” Kara asks, turning the attention back to Winn.

“Not exactly,” Winn explains. “We make it. We have to heat Green Kryptonite to an extremely high temperature.”

“And then what? We just wave it in front of her face?” Mom-El says in a derisive tone. 

Kara flashes him a look of death, and he quiets. 

“We inject it,” Alex asserts. “Like we did before with the green kryptonite.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Imra asks cautiously. 

Alex shakes her head defiantly. “No, we’re not going there.”

“Okay, well what if it does work?” Kara asks. “What happens then?”

Everyone turns to Winn once again. He grimaces nervously. 

“I hadn’t really ironed that part out yet,” he answers, gritting his teeth. 

“Then let’s get back to work then,” J’onn announces and the team begins to disperse, leaving all but Kara, J’onn, and Alex. 

Alex glances back up at the large windows at the face of the DEO building, the dark sky a reminder of the one thing that still hasn’t been addressed. 

“What do we do about that?” Alex says, pointing to the black sky. 

“Yeah, what’s the deal with the eclipse?” Kara asks non-chalantly. “I mean, it’s cool, but I’m kind of over it being night.”

“That’s not an eclipse, Kara,” Alex explains. “Eclipses don’t last this long. Is this gonna be a problem J’onn?”

“It could be,” J’onn reluctantly admits. 

“Problem for what?” Kara asks.

“Your powers,” Alex answers.

“Why? My powers don’t go away at night.”

“That’s only a few hours of darkness,” J’onn tells her. “They drain slowly but not enough for you to notice. You immediately recharge at sunrise.”

Kara’s brow furrows. “So you’re saying what? My powers are going to disappear?” 

“Not disappear, but wane,” J’onn explains. “With each passing day.”

Alex grits her teeth, shifting her weight back and forth anxiously “Do you think that’s what they’re waiting for?”

“It’s what I fear. So let’s keep preparing.”

Kara nods, and Alex watches her take off towards the training room. 

“Alex?” J’onn says, bringing Alex’s attention back. “We’re not going to talk about what a rash decision that was to go out there alone, because I think you already know that.” 

Alex nods, lowering her head apologetically. 

“I do. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry, for what this has been like for you. But I am glad you’re okay,” he tells her, lifting his arm and wrapping it around her. Alex leans in, letting him give her a tight squeeze, her eyes tearing up at the touch. 

“Alex!”

She looks up to see Winn approaching, an energetic smile. J’onn releases her arm and nods before heading off down the hall.

“Winn, hey. Thank you again for doing me that favor.”

Winn nods. “Let’s just say you owe me big.”

“Anything you want,” Alex offers apologetically. 

“But not just for that,” Winn continues. “I have something to show you.”

Winn pulls a suit from behind her back, black with leather accents and exactly Alex’s size. Her eyes widen. 

“I thought it was time for an upgrade.”

—

Alex stands in the training room in her new suit, getting used to the feel of it, to the weight of it on her body, learning to maneuver with the extra protection. She shrugs off the feeling of fatigue from a sleepless night and pushes herself to continue training, knowing she needs to be at her best for the looming fight. She tries not to focus on the fact that it is Sam she is training to fight, that every punch, every kick, every weapon she holds is to be used to inflict pain on the woman she so deeply cares for. Instead, she reminds herself of the somber truth that she needs to know how to protect herself from the thing holding Sam captive if she is ever to see Sam again. 

The door opens with a heavy creak, breaking Alex’s thoughts. She looks up and sees her sister stepping through the doorway, dressed in her suit. 

“Hey,” Kara says tentatively. 

Alex nods. “Hey.” She throws another punch into the bag, then winds up with a back kick. 

“Nice suit,” Kara remarks with a small hopeful smile. 

“Winn hooked me up,” Alex says, her voice softening only slightly as she throw another punch at an imaginary opponent

“I know,” Kara replies, drawing Alex’s gaze. “He’s not good at secrets,” she explains. 

“How are you feeling? With the blackout?” Alex asks, finally dropping her fists and pulling the gloves off her hands.

Kara shrugs, but Alex can tell she’s feeling uneasy, knows Kara without her powers makes her feel human in a way that Kara finds terrifying. 

“Just starting to feel a little more tired,” Kara tells her.

“I wonder how long we have.”

“J’onn thinks, best case scenario, days.”

“We need to prep yellow sun grenades.”

“He’s on it.”

Alex nods. She crosses to the room towards her sister, but instead of going to her side, takes a seat nearby on a bench. Kara moves to her side, sitting down next to her. They’re silent for a long moment. 

“Look, I’m sorry about this morning,” Alex starts. “You were just worried, and I was a jerk.

“No, I should have been more understanding,” Kara replies. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now. Sam’s just my friend, and now having to fight Reign knowing that Sam is inside there somewhere. I mean, you’re her... Just, I’d understand if you wanted to sit this one out.”

Alex’s brow furrows with confusion. “Sit it out? That’s the last thing I want. I have to be there. I have to protect her,” she sputters out, before she realizes how it sounds, talking about protecting the one thing they are trying to defeat.

“Alex, everyone is in the same page about saving Sam.”

“I know. I know that’s the goal, but I also know that if they feel like they’re forced to make a choice, if you have to make a choice, Kara. I know what it would be,” Alex tells her sadly. 

“You don’t know that,” Kara replies softly. 

“I do,” Alex answers with a resolute nod. “It’s what I would do. If it was anyone else. But even though I know that, at the same time, it doesn’t feel fair…” Alex continues, her voice trailing off to a whisper. Her emotions rise up like a knot in her throat as she thinks of how this could end. “I know that, at the end of the day, what matters most is making sure Reign doesn’t destroy the world. But…” Alex’s eyes well up with tears and her voice trembles. “…what about my world…? What about Ruby’s…?”

Kara wraps her arm around her sister’s shoulders and pulls her closer. Alex sinks into her, letting her comfort her, but only for a moment. Alex pulls away and takes a breath, trying to keep herself together, knowing Sam’s life depends on it. 

“I have to keep training,” she says solemnly before taking to her feet.

—

Later that night, as Alex finally heads out of the DEO to get a brief rest at home, she pulls her cell out and dials. 

Lena answers after the second ring. 

“Alex, hey. I’ve been worried about you. Kara called me panicked because she couldn’t get ahold of you.”

“I know, I’m sorry. How’s Ruby?”

“Worried. Do you want to talk to her?”

Alex shakes her head as she steps outside. The sky is black as it had been since morning. 

“No, no, I can’t. Not until I find Sam,” Alex tells her, knowing she can’t talk to Ruby until she’s fulfilled her promise. 

“So that means the trip, it was unsuccessful...”

“I’m closer. Just please, tell her everything is going to be okay,” Alex pleads. 

Alex can hear Lena hesitate on the other end of the line. 

“Is it, Alex?”

Alex releases a deep sigh. “Please don’t ask me that, Lena.”

Alex hands up and slides the phone into her back pocket. She rubs her forehead. She’d spent hours in training room, trying to focus on the physical fight, but she hadn’t been able to stop replaying every scenario of how the fight might play out, how she’d react, what she was willing to sacrifice. She kept coming to the same conclusion.

Now, Alex feels guilty for not being more honest with Lena, but she can’t be. 

She can’t tell her the truth. 

She can’t say that she’s coming out of this with Sam, or she’s not coming out of it at all. 

—

When the worldkillers descend, it’s two days later, in the early hours of the morning, but there is no dawn, no sunlight peering over the sunrise to mark the hour. Kara’s powers are at a nadir, and it’s clear to Alex that this is how they had planned it, this is exactly what they had wanted. 

The DEO had prepared as many yellow sun grenades, but without them, Kara can’t fly. She has no heat vision or freeze breath. No superhuman strength. She’s as vulnerable as Alex, and the look of terror on her face at this reality reminds Alex just how easily she herself could fall. 

They hit National City’s Wall Street District. By the time the DEO is on the scene, Reign and Purity and Pestilence are deep inside a high-rise, the windows blown in from their entrance, as they take down their victims one by one, execution-style. Men and women in suits are flinging themselves off the side of the building, out the broken windows, hoping for a better fate. 

As they arrive, Purity exits from a high-level window and swiftly flies down to the ground. 

She stares at them, at Alex and Kara, J’onn and James, Mon-El and Imra, at the swarm of DEO agents behind them with a smug smile before turning to the building and letting out a supersonic scream, shooting waves of energy at the sky rise’s foundation, glass shattering from every window. The building begins to sway; as Purity continues, the tall steel and glass structure grows increasingly unsteady until finally it begins to crumble. 

Alex’s eyes widen at the sight. 

“J’onn...” she whispers in terror. 

Alex feels J’onn‘s arm surrounding her and lifting her off the ground, just as the dust and rubble begins filling the atmosphere, the deafening sound of the building crashing into the ground drowning out everything else. 

When Alex can finally see again, they are nearly a hundred stories up on the top of CatCo, at the center of the helicopter pad. J’onn is beside her, Kara flanking his other side. Mon-El and Imra and James are close by. 

Alex steps forward to the side of the building and looks down at the scene. Debris covers the ground, the remnants of the skyscraper in pieces covering the center of downtown National City, neighboring buildings in ruin, scattered fires, a thick layer of dust and ash filling the air. It’s like a war zone, not her beloved city. 

Suddenly, Reign appears in front of Alex hovering in the air facing her. Alex’s eyes widen as she looks straight into Sam’s eyes. She backs up slowly. Reign’s gaze shifts behind her until her eyes are on Kara, weak and vulnerable and powerless. Reign smirks before she flies over Alex and lands between Alex at the edge of the building and Kara and J’onn in the center.

Alex turns and nods to the three on the other end of the building to go, to find the other two worldkillers, to do as they had planned and keep them separated. 

Reign takes slow deliberate steps towards Kara. Alex races her gun to the back of Reign and fires, shooting out a bullet of red electric energy that only momentarily halts Reign and draws her eyes back to Alex with a look of rage. Just then, J’onn releases a yellow sun grenade and with Reign about to reach for Alex’s neck, Kara flies towards her and hits Reign with an explosive fist, and the fight begins. 

—

Alex’s arms feel heavy and her legs ache. Her suit is torn in several places and underneath, the cuts in her skin burn. There’s a gash on the side of her head with dried blood from Reign’s fist.

Kara is exchanging punches with Reign amidst a pile of rubble, each blow knocking one to the ground before the other comes up with another swing. 

Alex’s arsenal of weapons is out of ammunition. It’s been hours. They are running out of sun grenades; Alex can count the ones left in her pack on one hand, and all she can think is they weren’t prepared, not enough. The mix of dark night sky and ash-filled air means the only thing in her sight are Supergirl and Reign... Kara and Sam... the two most important things in her world in the midst of battle. She tries to focus on the objectives, but it’s almost impossible when her heart is aching for them both to come out alive.

Right now, Alex feels like their plan is crumbling right in front of her. Kara just needed to incapacitate her, just for a few moments, just for enough time to get the vial of black kryptonite into her blood, but they’re running out of time, of energy, of hope. Each passing second is a second closer to defeat, to death.

Alex tosses another sun grenade, and Kara gets a burst of energy. The two wrestle, Reign hurls Kara into the ground. When she pulls herself up, a gash in her head is bleeding. They continue, punch after punch, sun grenade after sun grenade until Alex releases the last one, trying to hold onto a last fragment of hope, trying to fend off the growing feeling of despair, knowing that if Kara’s life is taken, hers will soon follow, knowing that her last breath might be spent staring into Sam’s eyes, still held hostage by her captor. 

Kara is growing weaker, Alex can see it in her eyes, as Reign starts gaining the upper hand. 

Reign reaches for Kara’s neck and lifts her in the hair. Kara grasps for her throat, trying to peel Reign’s hands away as Reign squeezes, tighter and tighter. 

Alex shakes her head. She can’t, she won’t let this happen. Alex stands to her feet from her hiding spot behind a piece of cement rubble and races towards them.

“Sam, no!” Alex shouts, lifting her hands, imploringly 

Reign twists her gaze to Alex and cocks her head. 

Kara’s eyes widen, but Reign drops her from her grip. 

“You wish to challenge me, you mortal?” she sneers.

“Alex, no!” Kara shouts to her sister, but Kara can’t stop her and she knows it. 

“Sam, it’s me, Alex. I know you’re still in there. I know you can hear me,” Alex pleads, not taking her eyes off Reign as she takes a other two steps closer. “You have to fight this, okay? We need you to fight this.”

Reign’s brow furrows for a moment as she halts, before a second later, when she looks up, eyes flashing red, filled with fury. 

“Silence,” Reign demands moving towards Alex. 

“Sam, listen to me. Ruby...” Alex starts. Reign stops again at the name, gritting her teeth like she’s grappling with herself. 

“Ruby misses you so much,” Alex continues. “She needs her mom. And I...” Alex’s voice is shaky now, tears well up in her eyes, but she keeps her feet locked firmly in place. 

“Sam, I need you. I was lost and broken, and you...Sam, you saved me. So I need you. Ruby and I need you. Please, come back to us,” Alex pleads, tears streaming down her face.

Reign looks back up at Alex now, but when their eyes meet, it isn’t Reign staring back at her. It’s Sam. Her Sam. There’s fear in her eyes.

“Alex?” Sam says softly, her voice barely a whimper. Sam looks down in confusion, to her hands wrapped in leather, stained with blood, to her body draped in black. 

Alex takes a few more steps until she’s in front of Sam. She reaches her arms around Sam’s body and pulls her close. 

“I’ve got you,” Alex whispers in Sam’s ear as she feels Sam relax into her grip. Alex closes her eyes for a moment to savor the feeling. She tells herself it’s going to be okay.

Alex finally opens her eyes and sees Kara from over Sam’s shoulder. Kara nods to Alex.

Alex reaches into her holster and pulls out the syringe vial. In one quick motion, she lifts her hands and plunges the needle into Sam’s neck. Almost instantaneously, Alex watches the black kryptonite surge through her, streaks of black cutting across her skin. Sam’s body tightens, her eyes close. Alex takes a step back. Convulsions wrack Sam’s body. Finally, Sam falls to her knees and standing behind her is an almost mirror image of Reign, black suit and cape, but instead of Sam’s face, there is nothing but blackness behind the mask. 

Alex drops to her knees and reaches for Sam, pulling her limp body into her arms, cradling her delicately. Sam’s hands are covered in blood, and Alex eyes the cuts in her skin, and it’s then that Alex realizes that some of the blood is Sam’s own, and she knows, she knows it worked.

Just then, sun breaks through the sky, sending streaks of light through the debris filled air and filling Kara with energy. The black figure rises into the air, just as J’onn arrives, sending a firm punch through the creature and sending it out of sight. 

Alex looks back down at Sam, sunlight shining across her face. Sam’s eyes are closed. Alex pulls the black mask off of Sam’s face, her skin speckled with dirt. Her hand cups Sam’s cheek, but Sam doesn’t move. Her body is still. She’s not breathing. 

Panic rises in Alex’s chest. 

“Sam, Sam, baby. Stay with me,” Alex pleads, stroking her face. “Please, Sam,” she whispers. 

Alex looks up, but the sun is blinding now. “Help me, please!” she calls out desperately.

J’onn appears again through a cloud of debris and ash. 

“I’ve got her,” he says, reaching down and taking Sam from Alex’s arms. 

In a split second, they disappear, leaving Alex amidst the rubble. Alex sees a flash of red flit through the air. 

“Kara!” Alex calls out.

Her sister appears.

“Please,” Alex pleads, and Kara wraps her arm around Alex and lifts her into the air towards the DEO.

—

When Alex and Kara arrive back at the DEO, Sam’s body is already on a gurney. She’s hooked up to monitors, beeping with the rate of her unsteady heartbeat. A DEO agent is holding a mask on her face, bagging her, oxygen being forced into her lungs. Even with her still in the black Reign suit, Alex is startled at how fragile she looks. 

As soon as Alex’s feet hit the ground, she’s at Sam’s side, barking orders.

“We need to tube her. I need a Mac blade and a 7 E.T. tube. Draw up some etomidate and succs. Let’s get a vent ready. Now!”

“Alex,” a voice calls out. 

Alex looks up through the crowd of DEO medics gathered around the gurney to see Kara standing a few feet away. 

“I have to...” Kara starts, and Alex nods her away, back to the fight. 

Alex turns her attention back to Sam. Someone hands her a laryngoscope, and Alex carefully slides a breathing tube into Sam’s airway.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry it took forever to get this next chapter done. I swear I’m not abandoning it. Just a crazy last couple months w graduating, moving cross country, new job. But I am not over these two even if Sam’s journey on the show is.
> 
> —

The buzz and whirl of the ventilator and the beep of the IV pole are the only sounds in the medical bay. Sam’s body is laid out on a gurney. She’s still. Her eyes are shut. An endotracheal tube exits her mouth, tape securing it to her face. EKG leads dot her chest underneath the hospital gown that dons her body now. Multiple plastic tubing lines enter her arms. Her wrists are tied down with restraints. It’s standard protocol, but Alex still hates it. 

Sam’s eyes look hollow, her skin is sallow. Her face is bruised, and there are sutures in place where cuts had been. Alex had spent hours cleaning Sam’s wounds and delicately closing her lacerations. She hasn’t left her side all night; instead, she’s remained, slumped in the chair beside the bed, her own hand covering Sam’s, getting up every few minutes to check her vitals, adjust her drips. She’s been weaning the sedatives since sunrise, and Alex had been relieved when Sam had begun breathing on her own. 

It was sometime during the night that the others had returned, victorious. Alex had tried to empathize with their victory cries, but it was hard to smile when she felt like her own world was still hanging in the balance. 

Alex traces her fingertips slowly over Sam’s hand, following each curve, memorizing each line of torn flesh that will someday scar, each reminding her that the invincible Reign is gone, banished for good, and that Sam, fragile mortal human Sam has finally returned. 

It’s just past sunrise now, and the DEO is quiet. The celebrations have died down. Agents have gone home, sleeping soundly in their beds, but Alex, still in her black Kevlar-reinforced suit, still won’t leave Sam’s side, not yet.

Alex senses movement nearby, entering the room and slowly approaching.

Alex finally looks up, and sees her sister, Kara’s eyes filled with worry. Kara moves closer to Alex, towards Sam’s bed, her eyes moving over Sam’s still body.

“How is she doing?” Kara asks tentatively. 

“Her vitals are stabilizing,” Alex tells her with a nod, immediately returning to provider mode. “Heart’s steady. She’s overbreathing the vent.”

Kara lifts her hands to Alex’s shoulder. “I can stay if you want to get some sleep.”

“It’s okay,” Alex replies, tilting her head to look up over her shoulder at her sister. “I want to be here when she wakes up.”

Kara nods, gives Alex’s shoulder a small squeeze, and then departs, as if she senses that Alex needs to be alone with Sam. 

Alex’s eyes move back to Sam, taking in how frail and vulnerable she looks. She slides her fingers between Sam’s, intertwining them, and squeezes softly, willing her to wake. 

“Please, Sam...” she pleads, her eyes filling with tears. “Please come back to me...”

—

Sam feels weightless, like she’s floating through space. There’s nothing but endless darkness around her. She tries to blink her eyes open, but the darkness persists. She knows she’s dreaming, but despite her best attempts, she can’t will herself to wake. 

Suddenly, her eyes catch a glint of color. It’s crimson and sapphire. A figure. Their fists connect, unstoppable versus immeasurable power. They move through the air in synchronicity, as if in a dance, intricate choreographed moves of violence, as they exchange blow after blow. 

And then, all of sudden, her vision narrows, and the figure shrinks into the distance. She feels her throat tighten. She can’t breathe. Sam tries to reach for her neck, but she can’t lift her arms. She gasps and writhes, and then, suddenly, there is a burst of light. The brightness is blinding. 

And then, a voice, muffled but familiar.

“It’s okay... You’re okay... You’re just waking up. I’m right here.”

Her body feels week, her limbs exceedingly heavy. She becomes sharply aware of the pain resonating through every fiber of her body, but her breathing steadies at the sound of the voice. 

Exhaustion floods her cells, and she fights the urge to slip back into dreams. Slowly, her eyes blink open.

Her vision gradually clears, blurred colors beginning to take shape. She squints, and finally, the image crystallizes, and she sees Alex’s face hovering above her. Those familiar soft brown eyes, the angled jaw, auburn hair framing her face.

“Alex...?” Sam breathes, her voice barely a murmur, laced with uncertainty. 

“I’m here,” she hears Alex reply softly.

Sam squints her eyes as she examines Alex‘s face. The concern in her expression is almost palpable with its earnestness. It sends a flood of uneasiness through Sam’s gut at the sudden realization; she doesn’t know where she is, doesn’t know how she got here. 

Sam’s chest tightens. It’s happened again. Her brain wracks for a memory, but she finds nothing. Another blackout. Another loss of time. 

Her body tenses and she tries to sit up, but even with the effort provided by panic, her body only lifts a couple of inches off the bed until pain sears through her, quelling her movements.

“Sam, hey, everything’s okay. You’re safe.” Alex gives her a small reassuring look.

Sam’s body relaxes slightly, her breathing slows, and she leans back down on the bed. Her gaze flickers back and forth, to the glaring fluorescent lights illuminating the sterile space, the high tech equipment hovering nearby, the hospital gown adorning her body.

“Where am I? Where’s Ruby?” she asks, her voice pressured and panicked again.

“She’s at home. With Lena. She’s just fine,” Alex tells her.

Sam feels a hand placed gently on her wrist. It’s warm. Her breath hitches at the closeness, at the contradictory mix of comfort and aching resonating through her at the contact, at the touch of Alex’s skin after so many days away from her, after so many tears over her, after letting go of the overwhelming sense of possibility she had once felt in her presence. She wasn’t ready to see Alex again, not yet, not ready to feel that ache again from losing her. 

Sam swallows hard, trying to squelch her emotions, and moves her hand away from Alex’s. For just a brief moment, Sam swears she can see a flicker of sadness cross Alex’s face in response. 

“What happened? Am I in the hospital?”

Alex gives a hesitant nod. “Something like that. It’s a medical unit.”

Sam looks down again at her own body, the one whose fatigue betrays her attempts at motion, and notices the sutures, the bruises, the lines running to and from her body.

“Was I in an accident?” she asks, looking back up at Alex. 

“No,” Alex states matter-of-factly. “...but you were hurt,” she explains, and despite Sam’s exhaustion, she can’t help but sense that Alex is choosing her words carefully. “But you’re going to be just fine.”

“I need to see Ruby.”

“You will. Soon. Just rest for now,” Alex assures her as she reaches her fingers up to Sam’s face and gently pushes a stray piece of hair out of her eyes, the movement so tender and intimate that it takes Sam by surprise. She hasn’t spoken to Alex in days, not since that night that left things in pieces. They were over. So why is Alex hovering protectively at her bedside now?

Sam’s eyes follow Alex as she crosses to the other side of Sam’s bed and to the machine pumping medication into her own body, sees her readjust something. It’s then that Sam notices that Alex is dressed in a black suit, something that Sam has never seen before, something between a uniform and armor, that hugs her body tightly. It’s speckled with dirt and soot as is her auburn hair. Alex glances over and offers another soft smile, and Sam observes the circles under Alex’s eyes are dark and deep with lack of sleep. 

Was there an attack? she wonders. Like that day at the waterfront? Or the time Ruby had run away? Had Alex saved her? Why would she bring her here and not a hospital? And what was ‘here?’ The bureau? A top secret federal medical facility? And why doesn’t she remember anything?

Sam tries to relax, to rest, god knows she needs it with the exhaustion that she feels weighing her down like bricks, but she grows anxious instead. 

She knows she blacked out again, disappeared, lost time... She’s sure of that. 

But why was Alex here? Had she finally figured out what was wrong with her? The look on her face told Sam one thing: whatever it was, it wasn’t good. 

—

Alex stands above Sam, looking down on her as sleep overtakes her tired body again. She lingers, watching her, the peaceful expression on her face stings because Alex knows it’s only because Sam doesn’t yet know the truth. Finally, Alex dims the lights and walks to the door, exiting the space for the first time since Sam was moved there almost a day ago.

On the other side of the doorway waits Kara and J’onn, concern heavy on both of their faces. 

Alex releases a deeply held breath.

“She doesn’t remember,” she tells them, shaking her head.

“Are you sure?” Kara asks. 

“With the separation, it’s possible that memories could have crossed over.” J’onn explains with a nod. 

“All she wants is to see Ruby,” Alex tells them, glancing back over at Sam’s figure, already wanting to be back next to her, where she can feel her pulse and her warmth and her breathing, and remember that she is really alive. “She doesn’t know why she’s here. What happened. What...” Alex swallows hard. “What she is...”

“We have to tell her, right?” Kara interrupts Alex’s thoughts, pulling her gaze back. “I mean, how else are we going to explain where she’s been the last few weeks?”

Alex nods. “I’ll do it.”

“I don’t think you should be the one to talk to her about this,” J’onn counters, drawing narrowed eyes from Alex. “I think perhaps someone more neutral,” he continues, looking over to Kara, in her alter ego’s garb.

“She’s not neutral,” Alex objects. 

“Ms. Arias doesn’t know that,” J’onn replies, turning back to Kara who gives him a small nod of agreement. 

They both look back to Alex, and she reluctantly relents with a gentle nod.

—

Sam stirs later; she can’t really distinguish how long she’s been in this room, this sterile space without windows to the outside, without clocks, without any way to mark the passing of time. 

Alex isn’t there now. The room is quiet except for the rhythmic sound of the medical equipment marking the beat of her heart. Sam sits up in bed so she can get a better look at her surroundings. The monitors scroll vitals, but it’s more high tech than she’s ever seen in a hospital. 

She swings her legs over the side of the gurney and tentatively lets her feet meet the ground. She feels unsteady at first, her hand remaining on the bed to balance her before she finally stabilizes.

She slowly moves around the room, a trail of tubes and wires connecting her still to the bedside machines as she takes in the space. The walks are glass but opaque so she can’t see through them to assess what this place is. 

“Sam,” a concerned voice calls out, and Sam looks up to see Alex standing in the now open doorway. “You should be resting...“ Alex continues insistently, rushing to Sam’s side like she’s something fragile that could bend or break at any moment. 

Sam moves away before Alex’s outstretched hands make contact. 

“I feel fine, Alex,” she insists, even as the pain moves through her body.

“You do?” Alex’s brow is narrowed. 

“Should I not?”

“I...” Alex starts, her voice unsure. “I don’t really know...”

Sam nods, eyeing her curiously.

“What happened to me, Alex?” 

“I can’t...” Alex starts, her voice trailing off, dissolving into the space between them, the space that has widened to what now feels like an insurmountable gap compared to what they once were. 

“So if you’re not going to tell me what happened, can I go home?”

Alex turns away, her hands fiddling with the machines, but Sam thinks she may be just trying to busy herself, that she’s avoiding Sam’s gaze. 

“Not yet,” Alex says softly. 

“Why? What am I doing here?” Sam demands, raising her voice just enough to make it clear she needs an explanation, answers. 

Alex doesn’t look up. “It’s hard to explain, Sam.”

Sam feels her stomach twist with anxiety. 

“What’s so hard? Am I sick? Is that it? The blackouts. You figured it out,” Sam replies, her voice pressured. 

Alex nods just slightly, her eyes away from Sam.

Sam swallows hard, a lump caught in her throat. 

“How bad is it? Am I dying?” 

“No, Sam, you’re not sick,” Alex replies with urgency, her head finally lifting as she moves towards Sam, as if trying to reassure her.

“Then what is it?” Sam asks, her eyes trying to read the expression on Alex’s face, trying to understand what is so awful that she doesn’t want Sam to know. “What aren’t you telling me, Alex?”

Alex takes a deep breath and finally opens her mouth to speak when a voice interrupts them.

“Ms. Arias.”

Sam looks up to see a man in a unmarked black uniform standing in the doorway.

“There is someone who would like to speak to you,” he says. 

Sam looks back to Alex hoping for something, but Alex’s eyes are on the floor, and Sam wonders what the hell Alex won’t say, what could possibly be worse than all of the possibilities running through her head.

—

Alex watches as the agent escorts Sam to a dimly lit interrogation room. Alex had protested the use, but the truth is, there are no rooms at the DEO for what they need today, the kind of room that hospitals keep available for breaking bad news, for letting someone that their cancer is terminal, informing a family that the end is near, telling a mother that she’s lost her only child. The kind with a beige couch and a warm lamp and all the trappings of home to make you feel safe before safe is ripped away. The kind of room that people know even before they cross the threshold that the door separates you from your world crumbling into irreparable pieces. 

Now, Alex stands on the other side of a one way glass as she sees Sam being led into the simple space, knowing this is just the same, that Sam has no idea that her world is about to come crashing down on her.

—

Sam sits inside a non-descript room on a folding chair at a small rectangular table. It feels like an interrogation room at a police precinct, or at least what she’s seen of them on television. And it must be, because the one thing she has deduced, from Alex’s presence, from the high-level security, from the high tech equipment, is that this must be the FBI’s headquarters.

Sam taps her foot nervously as she waits. 

After what feels like an interminably long silence alone in the empty space, the heavy door finally creaks open and in steps a flash of crimson and sapphire.

“Supergirl,” Sam breathes, her voice heavy with shock and bewilderment. 

The Girl of Steel crosses the room towards her. Sam has only seen her up close once before, except... no, she has, she has seen her, in her dreams, but that doesn’t count. This is different. 

Now, Sam can take her in; her presence is imposing, but it isn’t enough to deter Sam from the realization that Supergirl pulling up a chair across from her means exactly what she’s been fearing, that something is terribly wrong. 

“Sam... Is it okay if I call you Sam?” 

Sam nods.

“Where am I?” Sam asks nervously, her hands clasped atop the table as her body fidgets anxiously. 

“You’re somewhere safe,” Supergirl reassures her, but Sam doesn’t feel any less apprehensive. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was at L-Corp, I work there. Lena had called me, Lena Luthor. She had Ruby, my daughter. She’s twelve. We’d gone ice skating. I’d- I’d blacked out. It’s been…happening lately. A lot.” Sam tries to explain, but her words come out like a stutter, an awkward flow of disconnected thoughts. 

“What date was that?”

“Yesterday, I guess,” Sam replies with a small shrug. 

“No, I mean, the date,” Supergirl clarifies. “Do you remember the date?”

“Oh,” Sam says as she pulls from her memory. “March, um, March 6th.”

Supergirl nods, and there’s a long silence that Sam tries to read. She shifts her weight in the chair. 

“That was almost two weeks ago, Sam,” Supergirl finally says. 

Sam’s eyes narrow. “What? No, that’s not... that’s not possible. It’s always just hours… a day maybe, not…” 

“So you don’t remember anything?”

Sam shakes her head, her hands wringing in her lap as her breathing quickens. 

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure? Do you remember anything unusual, any... dreams, maybe?” 

“Dreams... Why?” Sam asks curiously, her thoughts floating back to that image of crimson. 

“You have, haven’t you? They’re vivid, aren’t they?”

Sam nods nervously. 

“I was there...You were fighting me?” Supergirl continues.

Sam’s body stiffens defensively. “How do you know this?”

“They weren’t dreams, Sam.”

“That’s crazy. You’re a- a superhero. I can’t actually fight you. I don’t even know how to fight,” Same replies, gesturing, her voice growing panicked and pressured. 

“I know it’s hard to understand. But you said yourself. You’ve been blacking out.”

“What are you trying to say?” Sam counters suspiciously. 

“Maybe it would be better if I show you. This was yesterday.”

Supergirl slides a high tech digital screen across the table. On it is a photograph. Sam slowly pulls it closer until her eyes begin to take in the image. It’s of Supergirl, mid-fight, her fist raised, about to contact another. Reign. The rogue alien who’s been terrorizing the city. A black mask covers her face, as in all the photos Sam has seen. 

Sam shrugs nervously, sliding the screen back. 

“That’s Reign. There was another attack?” she says, and Supergirl only nods in response. “Why are you showing me this?” Sam continues.

Supergirl taps on the screen, bringing up another photograph, and once again, it is slid across the table into Sam’s view. 

“This was after the fight, when Reign was brought here. When she was...captured,” Supergirl says slowly, but Sam hardly hears her.

Sam’s eyes glance down and sees the same figure in the photo, the monster, the murderer, laid out on a gurney, still in all black. But now, her mask is gone. 

As she takes in the photo, Sam feels her whole world all of a sudden tilt on its axis. Her vision blurs, her body tenses, her face goes numb as everything she ever thought she knew shifts out of place, as she looks down at the image of her own face. 

“No...” Sam breathes, her voice barely a whimper. “That’s not possible,” she insists, trying to convince herself more than anyone else. 

“But she... she... You’re saying I- I couldn’t have...” 

Her voice goes quiet. Tears fill her eyes. Her face twists in anguish. Finally, Sam lifts her gaze back to the woman across from her. 

“What am I?” Sam chokes out, pleading, just before she finally breaks, tears falling down her cheeks, her body wracking with heaving gasps, cries escaping her lips as her world collapses around her. 

—

Alex lifts her hand up to the glass barrier, feels her knees grow unsteady as her eyes well with tears. She watches, eyes fixed on Sam, alone, her head in her hands, sobbing, and Alex thinks how she would give anything, her life, to take away Sam’s pain. And she realizes that never before has she felt more helpless. 

—

When Sam wakes, the clock beside the bed reads half past 8. Her eyes are red and her face is still swollen, but after so many hours of crying, she just feels numb. 

Later on the night before, after Supergirl had tried to explain, tried to tell her what she is and isn’t, what she did but didn’t do, Sam had been escorted to this solitary room, where she found a bed, a desk, a second door leading to bathroom, and, she can only assume a camera camouflaged somewhere, a lock to keep her in, an armed guard keeping vigil on the criminal inside. At least it was better than fluorescent lights and IV lines and monitors, she had thought. It was privacy. 

She had sat on the bed crying for hours, her thoughts in disarray, trying to understand, wanting to know what her punishment for all those lives she took will be, wondering when, if ever, she’ll be allowed to see Ruby. 

There is a knock at the door, and it’s then that Sam realizes it had been a knock that had woken her to begin with. 

When she doesn’t respond right away, Sam hears another gentle rasp and then a voice.

“Hey, it’s Alex,” she hears her call out, her voice sounding tentative. “Can I...”

“Sure, yeah.”

The door creaks open slowly, and Alex steps inside, propping the door with her body. Sam doesn’t look up yet, but she can feels Alex’s eyes burning into, examining her, and she can’t help but feel like a wild animal that’s been put in containment after being deemed too dangerous to others. 

“How are you doing...?” Alex asks softly. 

Sam’s brow furrows as she finally looks up, a mix of surprise and anger and sadness at the question. 

“How am I-?” she starts, until her eyes finally meets Alex’s and she sees the sadness there. 

“I’m sorry...” Alex stutters, shifting her weight. “Stupid question.” 

Sam watches Alex’s eyes fall to the ground, sees the front of her short auburn hair fall in front of her eye in that way that had always made her swoon, had always made her heart swell, and it makes her throat constrict with longing, not exactly for Alex but for the before, for the time back when her greatest heartache was losing her. Before she had lost everything. 

“What now?” Sam asks solemnly. 

“We have to run some tests...”

Sam sighs. “I hate hospitals.”

“Well, this isn’t a hospital,” Alex tells her, like it’s some sort of consolation, like she’s supposed to look on the bright side, when everything is dark and dismal. 

“Right.” 

“Here,” Alex says, drawing Sam’s gaze. She looks up to see Alex’s outstretched hand, her cell phone in her hand. “Why don’t you call Ruby?”

Sam tentatively takes the phone Alex hands her. “Is that allowed?” she asks, eyes narrowed. 

Alex shrugs, like she doesn’t give a damn if it is or not, and it makes Sam remember how much she had loved Alex’s willfulness. 

“What do I tell her?”

“Tell her you’re okay,” Alex encourages. “I’ll, um, give you a minute,” she says before moving back outside and quietly letting the door close.

Sam dials Ruby’s number, and as it starts ringing.

After a few rings, Ruby’s eager voice picks up. 

“Alex?”

“No, baby, it’s me.” 

“Mom!” Ruby exclaims, and Sam feels her eyes well up at the sound of her daughters voice. “Oh my god, she did it!”

“Who did what, honey?” Sam wonders.

“Alex! She said she was going to find you!”

“She did?”

She said she’d bring you home. Does this mean you’re coming home? I’ve missed you so much. 

“I’ve missed you too, baby,” Sam tells her, a few tears escaping her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She wipes them away and struggles to keep her voice steady. “But I can’t come home just yet. I’m... in the hospital,” Sam tells her, feeling the guilt of lying to her daughter, but truth is, she doesn’t even know where she is. 

“Are you sick?” Ruby asks, her voice wavering with concern.

“I was. But I’m getting better now,” Sam assures her.

“Can I come visit you?”

“I wish you could, Rubes, but they- they won’t let any visitors with the outbreak. I don’t want you to get sick, okay?”

“I just miss you so much, Mom.”

Sam chokes back her tears. “I miss you too, baby. I’ll be home soon.”

“Promise?”

Sam takes a deep breath before she answers, knowing she has no idea what lies ahead, but she can’t tell Ruby that. 

“I promise,” she whispers instead, and swallows back her cries again. “Now is your Aunt Lena taking good care of you?”

—

The next few days are filled with so many blood tests and scans that Sam eventually stops asking what they each are, simple offers her body to be poked and prodded. Learned helplessness is the term, she remembers from a university psychology class, what happens to an animal in a cage when it decides to stop fighting. 

Alex has been doing most of the exams. She’s gentle, which Sam appreciates, but they haven’t said much to each other. Sam hasn’t wanted to speak, and Alex has respected her silence. They’ve simply been existing in the same space all these hours in the medical bay before she’s led back to her room at night. 

The truth is, Sam doesn’t even know how to look at her, knowing that Alex knows exactly what she is... what’s she’s done. 

—

It’s three days later when Sam is released into Alex’s custody. Alex could tell by J’onn’s expression that he was questioning her judgement, but they didn’t have a reason to keep holding Sam any longer. Test after test had resulted over the last few days with a resounding confirmation that Sam was just Sam now. 

Except that the person sitting on her couch in her apartment didn’t seem familiar at all anymore. 

They had arrived hours ago, and silence had permeated the space. Sam had sat down, eyes glazed over, like she’d been the last several days. Alex had thought getting her away from the DEO, getting her somewhere more familiar might change things, but she chastises herself as she realizes how naive that was. 

Alex offers her the shower, and Sam accepts. She’s in there for nearly an hour, and Alex swears she can hear the faint sound of sobs overlaid with the spatter of falling water. Sam emerges later, her hair still damp and pulled back, wearing a pair of Alex’s sweats, and returns to the couch. 

Alex finally crosses the room and takes a seat on the other end of the sofa. Sam doesn’t even look up.

“Can I get you something to eat?” Alex offers, willing Sam to meet her gaze, but Sam doesn’t look over.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Sam replies, her voice flat. 

“If you’re getting tired, the bed, it’s for you...”

“I’ll be fine here.”

There is a long pause. Alex shifts her weight, her eyes moving over Sam’s face. She looks deep in thought, and what Alex would do to know what was running through her mind, for Sam to let her back in. 

“Do you remember anything?” Alex finally asks tentatively. 

Sam nods. “Yeah, a little bit. It’s been coming back in pieces. Unfortunately.”

“They said that might happen,” Alex answers. She takes in Sam’s expression, trying to read her. She sees Sam clenching her jaw and purse her lips and her eyes grow moist with tears. 

“I remember... their cries...” Sam finally chokes out.

Alex feels a crushing in her chest at Sam’s words, at her tears, at her suffering. She wants to reach out to her, comfort her, but the space between them feels like a chasm. 

Finally, Sam looks up, her gaze meeting Alex’s. Her eyes are bloodshot. There’s not a ounce of warmth to her expression. 

“Why did you bring me here?” Sam asks firmly. 

Alex swallows, not expecting Sam’s directness, after so many days of avoidance. 

“We didn’t think you were ready to be alone,” Alex replies carefully. 

“I get that,” Sam replies. “I just mean, I’m sure there’s some government-sponsored half-way house for reformed villains.”

Alex realizes what Sam means. Here. Her home. Why did she bring her home.

“We just...we all thought this would be better,” Alex says. _I thought it’d be better,_ she thinks. 

Sam looks away and nods, pursing her lips, frustration painted across her face, and Alex waits nervously for her reply. 

Sam eventually turns back to her. “We? Who’s we, Alex?” she demands. “FBI? CIA? Supergirl? All of the above?”

Alex frowns, opens her mouth to speak and then backs down. She takes a long deep breath. “That’s classified,” she replies regretfully. 

Sam’s body language shifts, her body tensing with anger, resentment maybe, even betrayal.

“Is this because they thought I needed more supervision? Put their best agent on 24/7 villain watch? Is the place under surveillance?” Sam questions, gesturing with her hands. “Is Supergirl guarding the perimeter in case I try to escape?

Alex lowers her head. “No. It’s just me, Sam,” she says, shaking her head softly.

When Alex finally looks back up, Sam’s eyes are narrowed, eyeing Alex suspiciously. 

“Why would you want me here?” Sam asks, shaking her head with a look of confusion on her face. “In your home? Endangering your life?” she adds caustically.

Alex swallows hard. She stands from the couch, turns away, wrings her hands. 

She shifts her weight nervously. They haven’t talked about this. They’ve hardly talked at all. It’s clear though that Sam’s memories haven’t all returned, and the way Sam is looking at her is sending a sharp ache through Alex’s gut. 

Alex finally turns back to face Sam.

“You don’t remember, do you? How the fight ended? When you...” her voice trails off, remembering, remembering Sam in her arms, helpless and frail, breathless and dying, remembers her panic, her wails for help. “You don’t remember that part?”

Sam slowly shakes her head. “Why?”

Alex pushes the memories back, pushing the emotion back down. She tries to compose herself. 

“Doesn’t matter. But this? It’s just me, ok?” Alex tells her, insistently, moving closer to Sam, taking a seat beside her. “No one’s outside. No one’s on guard at all exits. If you want to leave, I’m not going to wrestle you down and restrain you, Sam. I just thought you could use a transition space, before you went home,” Alex says, reaching for Sam’s hand.

Sam moves away from the touch, and Alex feels her chest tighten at the rejection. Sam stands to her feet, widening the space even further. 

“Home? I can’t go home,” Dam replies incredulously. “What am I supposed to tell Ruby? My daughter? I’m so sorry for being an absent mother, I was off murdering people and trying to destroy the world.”

“Ruby doesn’t know. She doesn’t ever need to know,” Alex urges.

“She’s gonna figure it out, Alex. You know that,” Sam counters. 

“She won’t,” Alex replies, rising to her feet to meet Sam’s eye level. 

“And you, why are you doing this? You don’t need this, Alex. You don’t need this burden. You’ve got enough on your shoulders to have to rehab a murderer, a world killer,” Sam spits, accusatorially, her eyes narrowed. 

“You’re not a killer, Sam,” Alex tries to interject, but Sam continues. 

“You all should probably just lock me up and throw away the key!” Sam says, raising her voice. “I’m a waste of your time. Come on, Alex. Your job is to protect people, isn’t it?”

Alex feels her own frustration swell inside.

“Yeah, and this is me doing my job!” Alex shouts back, before she can stop herself, feeling the weight of regret as soon as the words are released. She’s surprised by the decibel of her voice, and it seems to take Sam by surprise too, because Sam quiets.

Eventually, Sam nods and slides back down onto her seat on the opposite end of the sofa. 

“Got it,” Sam whispers softly.

Alex closes her eyes in defeat.

—

Alex’s apartment isn’t that small, but it feels cramped, with no walls to separate them. Sam feels numb, hopeless, empty, and she would rather have her privacy. She feels so close to falling apart, imploding, breaking down, and she doesn’t want a witness, especially not Alex. But where would she go? She aches to just hold her daughter again, but how will she ever walk back in that house again after all that she’s done. 

Sam had stayed on the couch the night before, but sleep had never really found her. The memories had kept returning: fragmented images, sounds, sensations, smells. 

Terrified screams. 

The metallic smell of blood. 

The sticky warm feel of it on her hands. 

Life disappearing from their faces. 

So many faces. 

They linger behind her eyelids every time she tries to will herself to sleep, like ghosts haunting her. But she deserves this, doesn’t she? Punishment. For the lives she swept away before their time. 

So she doesn’t sleep. 

Sometime in the early morning, as the sun starts rising, she finally pulls herself from under the blanket and crosses over to Alex’s window. 

She swipes the curtain aside and gazes outside. At 20 stories up, the view is spectacular, even amidst the rubble of downtown that’s been left in her wake. From up here, the soot isn’t so noticeable. You can’t see the wreckage. The sun is painting horizontal beams across the metal buildings, shooting gold reflections off every surface. 

Of all the things breaking back into her memories, she wonders why she can’t remember what it felt like to fly. 

“You’re up early,” Alex’s voice cuts the silence.

Sam looks over to see her crossing the room towards her wearing joggers and a tank. She thinks to herself that of all of the times that she imagined how she would first see Alex in the early morning light, she never once thought this would be the circumstances.

But no makeup, hair disheveled, wearing sweats, even against her own willpower, Sam can’t help but think she’s beautiful. 

“More like up late,” Sam replies, before forcing her gaze away, trying to will away the ache she feels just looking at Alex. 

“Oh. Are you hungry? I can make you breakfast? Or coffee? I’m better at coffee.”

Sam is silent for a long beat. She can feel Alex’s eyes on her. 

“Do I still have...powers?” Sam finally asks softly.

“No,” Alex replies quickly. “You are as human as I am.”

“I was created on another planet to kill people. I’m nothing like you, Alex,” Sam retorts. 

“We’ve done every test, Sam. And I know alien physiology, ok? Your genetic makeup, your physiology, your brain chemistry. You might have been made on Krypton, but you were made human,” Alex tells her. 

Sam eyes Alex suspiciously. “Alien physiology... You don’t work for the FBI, do you, Alex?” Sam questions, and Alex looks away. “That place I was at,” she continues. “What was that? 

Alex sighs and moves to the dining table, where she pulls out the chair and takes a seat. Sam doesn’t move, waiting for her reply. 

“It’s called the DEO,” Alex finally days, her hands set on the table, fidgeting nervously, and Sam can tell that Alex isn’t supposed to be telling her this. “Department Of Extranormal Operations. It’s a classified government agency. We’re assigned to handle extraterrestrial matters,” Alex tells her matter of factly. 

Sam nods as the words sink in. “Extraterrestrial matters. That’s what I am, huh?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Alex insists, standing to her feet again, but maintaining the few feet between them. 

Sam turns to face Alex, whose face is panicked and remorseful. 

“You were hunting me. This whole time?”

“Yes,” Alex says softly, sadly. 

Sam processes what Alex is telling her.

“We’ve fought before, haven’t we? I’ve fought you.”

“It wasn’t you,” Alex replies, shaking her head. 

Sam’s eyes move across the room, avoiding Alex’s gaze. They settled on the pair of crutches still lingering by Alex’s front door, now unused. 

Sam turns back to meet Alex’s eyes. “I broke your leg, didn’t I?”

“Sam...” Alex says stepping forward. Sam reacts by taking a step back. 

“Didn’t I, Alex? I’m a monster.” 

Sam’s face is overcome with despair, her chest heaves, her voice falters. 

“No...” Alex shakes her head, but Sam already knows it was she who hurt Alex. 

“I could have killed you,” Sam says softly as Alex moves closer.

Sam feels Alex’s hand reach for hers before she can move away, and the contact makes her heart ache, with longing, with regret, with grief. She doesn’t know how Alex is even able to stomach looking at her, let alone touch her, after what she did.

“You didn’t do any of this, Sam,” Alex tries to assure her. 

Sam shakes her head. “I did all of it,” she whispers as she drops Alex’s hand and turns away. 

—

After too many nights of sleep evading her, Sam finally drifts off sometime after midnight. Alex had long since turned in, leaving Sam alone with the subtle murmur of the television. They had spent the day hardly speaking. Alex had moved around her cautiously, like Sam was fragile and breakable.

Mid-day, Alex had gone to pick up food, but when she’d been gone for two hours, Sam had started wondering if it was just an excuse to get away from her. She couldn’t even blame her. 

When Alex had returned, they had eaten in silence, Alex at the table, Sam on the sofa. 

So when Sam finally falls asleep curled up against the sofa arm, her head on a throw pillow, it’s not without a fight. She’s afraid to dream, afraid of what other memories might return, what nightmares might fill her mind. 

—

There is ash raining down, the skies dark with clouds of smoke from the wreckage. Even though she knows she’s dreaming, Sam can’t will herself to wake. She can feel herself shaking, terrified of what vision comes next, what memory, what death to add to her body count. 

She closes her eyes, trying to push it all away. 

Suddenly, a voice breaks through, calling her name. 

Sam opens her eyes. Alex is standing a few paces in front of her. She’s in that same black suit she’d seen her in days ago, dressed for combat. 

“Sam, you have to fight this,” Alex calls out, desperation in her eyes. 

Sam closes her eyes trying to will it all away. 

“Ruby...” Sam hears Alex say, but her voice tails off, lost in the wind and roar of destruction. “She needs her mom.” 

Sam’s eyes open again. 

“I need you,” Alex says, her hand outstretched. The memory is foggy, but Alex’s words are clear. “I was lost and broken, and you...Sam, you saved me.”

“So I need you. Ruby and I need you. Please, come back to us...”

Sam wakes gasping. The apartment is dark, silent. Her heaving breaths fill the space. She sits up and glances over at the bed. Alex’s figure is still, deep in sleep.

Sam’s eyes fill with tears at the memory, at the sight of Alex, fearless, eyes tender, arms outstretched; of her voice, confident and warm and reassuring. 

Sam feels overwhelmed with longing for her. She stands, dropping the blanket back onto the couch and crosses over to the bed. 

—

Alex stirs to the faint sensation of weight settling into the bed beside her. She opens her eyes and slowly turns onto her back. 

In the dark, Alex’s eyes slowly adjust to see Sam’s face hovering above her just a moment before Sam’s mouth finds hers, fingers sliding behind Alex’s neck.

Alex feels herself melting into Sam. Her hand reaches up to cup Sam’s face pulling her closer, and heat spreads through her. The kiss deepens with more need than had Alex realized had been pent up inside of her, desire and longing that she’d been holding inside of her for weeks, finally being released. 

Just then, Alex tastes salt on Sam’s lips, and she realizes suddenly that it’s tears, that Sam is crying. She pulls away slightly, hand still holding Sam’s cheek and sees her eyes wet, tears streaming down her face.

Alex wraps her arms around her and pulls her in close, kissing her temple tenderly. 

“Come here,” she whispers. “It’s okay. I’ve got you,” she tells her, pulling Sam down beside her so that Sam’s head settles onto her shoulder. 

Sam’s body relaxes into her. She wraps her arms around Alex’s waist and holds on to her tightly, her quiet tears dissolving into sobs.

“It’s okay,” Alex whispers, holding her tighter, fingers running through her hair. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

—

Alex stirs. It’s early morning. The apartment is still dark. Her left arm feels numb. She wonders for a brief moment why she can’t move it before her thoughts grow more lucid, and she remembers. Alex tilts her head, and her eyes catch the sight of Sam’s brown hair sprawled across the white pillow. Her head is nestled into the crook of Alex’s shoulder. Her eyes are still closed. Alex’s breath catches in her throat at the sight, overwhelmed once again by their proximity, by the warmth of Sam’s body against her own. 

Alex brazenly reaches out her hand and slides it down Sam’s upper arm. Her olive skin is almost too soft. Sam stirs slightly from the touch, and in her sleep, she lifts her arm and drapes it over Alex’s waist. Alex feels her eyes well up, overwhelmed with emotion to finally have Sam back, right here, in her arms, where she knows they both belong. 

Alex stays there as long as she can, studying the lines of Sam’s face, her dark eyelashes, the curve of her lips that were pressed against her own just hours ago. 

She stays in place, still, as long as she can hold on; she doesn’t want to let her go, not ever, because for weeks, she wasn’t sure if she ever would hold her again, but her bladder is insistent, so eventually she slides herself out from underneath Sam’s weight and reminds herself of a few simple reassuring truths, that Sam is here with her and she is safe and she is free. 

—

Alex stands in the kitchen, taking in the smell of the coffee brewing beside her. Sunlight is beaming through the window. Sam is still asleep in bed, and after everything, Alex can’t help but think that finally something feels right again. 

Alex reaches for two mugs from the cupboard and pulls a carton of milk from her fridge. 

She hears the floor creak slightly and she looks up to see Sam making her way across the room towards her. 

She smiles broadly, but Sam only smiles hesitantly in return.

“Morning,” Alex says warmly as she pours the coffee in the two mugs. “It’s no double shot almond milk latte, but there is some almond milk.”

“This is great, thank you,” Sam replies, taking the mug and adding a splash of milk from the carton. 

Alex hesitates, wanting to reach her arms out for Sam and pull her tight again, but she can’t read Sam’s demeanor, can’t tell what she’s thinking. 

Sam takes a sip and moves to the sofa, taking a seat. Alex fixes her coffee before following her lead.

Sam sets her mug on the coffee table before turning to face Alex.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she says softly.

Alex shakes her head. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“No, that was out of line.”

Alex releases a small chuckle, her memory flashing back. “I remember the last time you said that.”

Sam nods, a long beat of silence passing.

“I don’t want to give you the wrong idea,” Sam finally replies, slowly, carefully, deliberately.

Alex feels her throat tighten, her body tense. 

“The wrong idea...”

“I can’t do this, Alex. I can’t do this with you,” Sam says firmly.

Alex feels her vision blur. Her face grows hot. She feels dizzy, lightheaded. 

“Oh,” Alex breathes. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam continues. “Look, I appreciate all that you’ve done for me, but I just... I can’t.”

Alex just nods silently, fighting back tears.

—

The car ride over is heavy with silence. They sit side by side in the front of the black DEO issued SUV, the same one where this had all started, where they had started, where it feels bitterly ironic that, after such a hard fought victory, that this is where they are also ending. 

Sam sits in the passenger; Alex is at the helm, but she feels the opposite of in control. Since Sam had uttered those simple final words, she’d felt herself in an unrestrained tailspin. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out. Saving her was supposed to be the impossible task. She never thought that this is how she would lose her, not as Reign but as Sam. 

This last final duty is the only thing holding her together, the one final thing keeping her from the bottle, the last thing separating her from her grief. 

Alex glances over at Sam, at the fading bruise on her jaw and the healing cuts on her hands, and it aches to think just hours ago, she was holding her. She thinks how she never would have let her go, never would have crawled out of bed, never would have given up a moment more of Sam in her arms if she had known it would be her last. 

Alex turns back forward before Sam catches her eyes on her and steers into the driveway of the Arias house, the one she’d made her own for so many painful days and nights, holding on to hope.

Ruby is on the front porch already, Lena hovering behind her, a hand affectionately resting on Ruby’s shoulder. Ruby’s smile is so grand, it’s the only thing that keeps Alex from falling apart as she shifts the car to park and turns off the ignition. 

Sam slips out of the car quickly, and Alex follows, watching as mother and daughter, reunited, race to each other’s arms. Sam drops to one knee so she can pull Ruby to her tightly.

Alex stays back by the car, not wanting to intrude. She can see Ruby’s tears from the distance, and she feels an overwhelming sense of relief that she kept her word to her. 

After a long embrace, Ruby lifts her head and her eyes meet Alex’s. She mouths, “thank you,” and Alex simply nods, trying to hold back the tears filling her eyes. 

Alex lingers for a moment, before finally, she turns back and returns to the vehicle. She slams the door shut, shifts the SUV into reverse, and begins to cry.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Legit sorry for the 8 month update delay. Swear I didn’t forget about this, just life is crazy hectic! Hope there are still a few out there who will read this :)

It’s dark, dawn just shy of the horizon. Alex gasps in heaping breaths of air as her feet pound the pavement, echoing. It’s half past 5 in the morning and the city is only now just starting to rise, just beginning to flash its deep orange glow over the city skyline. Alex’s lungs burn, her chest heaving. 

She doesn’t need to be up this early, but lately, she’s come to love the quiet, the stillness, of the city in the early morning. These masochistic runs have become a daily routine for her, a sort of ritual now. She’s grown to need the pain, like self-inflicted lashings, punishment for all the ways she went wrong. 

She mulls over those days, replaying every minute over and over, every decision, every action, wondering where she went wrong. She thinks of how it had felt to hold her, that terror as she grasped her lifeless body, and nights later, in her bed, arms wrapped around her, as if she had already known that she would slip away again.

Now, this burn she feels in her lungs as she gasps for air serves a purpose, to cover the ache in her chest, the one hollowed out by her absence, filled with loneliness, steeped in grief. 

They are wrong to call them stages, Alex thinks, as she has so many times now on these runs, scoffing. Stages... as though you gradually move from one to the other, like simple steps up a stairway to acceptance. The truth is that they mingle together, that amidst the depths of depression, you find yourself begging for another chance, that the anger can swiftly swing you right back into denial. That when you think you must finally be somewhere near acceptance, you remember grief is really a dark cavern with no way out. 

—

The color, it reminds Sam of her. That deep, rich color of night that feels endless. It seeps into every part of her memory now. For weeks, she hated the fragmented, disjointed flashes, puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together, but now, now that her memories come in full clarity, overwhelmingly vibrant, she would give anything not to remember. 

Remember black leather covering her skin, covering her hands. Remember the feel of thick warm blood in her palms, trapped in her fingernails. Remember the look of life draining from innocent eyes.

“Are you nervous?”

The voice jolts Sam from her thoughts. She looks up from her cup of black coffee to see Ruby standing across the kitchen island from her, sliding her backpack over her left shoulder. 

Sam forces her mind to her daughter.

“Why do you say that?” she asks with a curious smile, making her way around the island to her daughter’s side, where she smooths Ruby’s hair and lifts her own satchel onto her shoulder, the one she hasn’t used in far too long. 

Ruby shrugs. “I’m always nervous the first day of school.”

“Well, it’s not my first day,” Sam tells her. “Just my first day in a while.” 

Sam glances quickly at the clock and then starts towards the front door, knowing being late her first day back definitely won’t send the right impression to Lena. The kind that says she’s fine, better, ready. Ready to infiltrate the work force again, ready for conference calls and negotiations and expense reports. Ready to be... well, human again...

“Right, like coming back after summer break,” Ruby finally replies, sprinting to catch up to her mom who is already opening the front door. 

“I guess you’ve got a point,” Sam purses her lips then nods. “So any tips?”

Ruby grins. “Imagine everyone in their underwear?”

“I don’t think your Auntie Lena would like that,” Sam says, laughing at the thought. 

“Oh, that’s weird,” Ruby says, scrunching her face. 

“You said it!” Sam explains, ruffling Ruby’s hair and pushing her gently out the door. 

—

It’s a couple hours later when Alex arrives to the DEO, slipping in the back entrance and moving quickly to the locker room, trying to hang onto the last few moments of peace before the chaos of her daily routine at the office begins. 

Her fingertips briskly twist the combination lock until it opens, and she pops open the door to her locker. She grabs her DEO issued garb and takes a seat on the wooden bench, sliding off her tennis shoes first, then quickly changing into her routine black uniform. She pushes her hair out of her face, her palm dragging over the shaved side of her shorter cut, one that she’s still getting used to the feel of. 

She lingers there a moment, taking a couple deep breaths. There is a heaviness in her chest that has taken hold and a fog that hangs over her head. There was a time when she still thought it was just a temporary feeling that would lift with time, that the pain would fade, soften, but it’s never ceased, only changed shape. It’s become duller, denser, weightier. 

“This is my life now...” she says softly, the same words she has murmuring to herself once the hope that she might ever feel normal again had finally ceded. 

There is a rasp on the locker room door from outside, and Alex’s brow furrows in confusion.

“Come in?” she calls out. 

She looks up and sees Winn’s beaming face. 

“Alex! Just who I was looking for.” Winn’s face then turns uncertain. “Actually, can I call you that still?” he wonders nervously. “Is that still allowed?”

“Why?” she asks with a curious head shake. “It is my name.”

“‘Cause you’re like the boss now,” he continues.

Alex’s eyes narrow. “Wasn’t I always your boss?”

Winn frowns, shifts his weight awkwardly. 

“Oh, well, I guess I kind of thought of us more as...colleagues, you know? No?”

Alex looks away to hide her smirk, reaching for her black trainers. “Hm. Interesting. So what do you think you should call me?”

“Actually, Director Danvers definitely sounds...” Winn replies, his words rushing out. “Yeah, I’m gonna go with that.”

Alex looks back up and laughs. “Winn, I’m kidding.”

“Oh, okay,” he breathes with relief, his shoulders relaxing. “Whew.”

Alex slams her locker door shut and clamps the lock closed. 

She hesitates, ponders, then turns back to her friend. 

“Actually, maybe around the subordinates though,” she says with an apologetic grimace. 

“I got you, boss,” he says, flashing a wink and pointing his finger at her. 

“So was there something you needed?”

“Oh yeah. I just came to tell you there’s a short in the mainframe, the men’s locker room is flooded from a backed up toilet, and that stomach thing that Walters had last week? We’ve got almost a dozen agents out sick with it. Oh, and congrats!” he declares before slipping back out the door.

Alex sighs heavily, shoulder slumped. 

“Congratulations to me,” she mutters under her breath.

—

There’s a faint rasp on the door that draws Sam’s gaze. It doesn’t wait for an answer before the door swings open. Standing in the doorway in her usual garb, a fitted dress and too high heels, is Lena, arms crossed, a small satisfied smirk on her face. It’s a familiarity that makes Sam think that maybe, just maybe, she can get her life back, pieces of it anyway.

“You know, I wouldn’t have given your desk away if you’d taken a little more time,” Lena says before uncrossing her arms, her smirk broadening to a warm smile as she crosses the office to Sam’s desk. 

Sam laughs and shakes her head. “That’s some welcome back,” she replies, rising to her feet and taking a step forward to embrace her friend. 

“It’s good to see you,” Lena tells her, giving her a tight squeeze that moistens Sam’s for just a moment before she can blink it back. 

Sam pulls back from the hug. “It had been long enough away,” she counters, taking her seat again as Lena leans up against the desk. 

“Well, long enough avoiding your friends, I’ll say,” Lena playfully chastises. 

“I wasn’t avoiding,” she insists. 

“Uh huh,” Lena replies, shaking her head. “Started forgetting what you look like.”

Sam smirks. This face?” she asks, gesturing to herself. “Impossible. Besides, you’re the one who was barring me from entering this building.”

“For your own good, this place doesn’t exactly foster a healthy work-life balance.” Lena motions to herself. “Case in point.”

Sam laughs in agreement. 

“Besides,” Lena continues. “I wanted you to have time with Ruby.”

“Ruby goes to school eight hours a day.”

“You know most people would be thanking me for this much PTO.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Thank god for that,” Lena exclaims in reply. She shifts her weight off the desk and takes a step back towards the door. “We still on for lunch?”

Sam feels her body tense up, and she wonders if maybe Lena isn’t wrong. 

“You sure you don’t want me to just stay and work? Lots to catch up on,” she suggests. 

“See, avoiding,” Lena teases. 

“Okay,” she relents. “Just...Kara?” Sam asks cautiously. 

“Just Kara.”

Sam finally nods in agreement. 

“All right, well I have a 10am with that jackass from Tucker Wilson. I’ll meet you in the lobby at noon,” Lena says before spinning and disappearing through the door, it closing behind her with a loud click, leaving Sam alone with her thoughts. 

Sam lets out a breath she was holding, feeling relieved, grateful even. Grateful that Lena didn’t make her say it. Her name. 

Because she can’t. Not out loud. 

Because whatever was will never be, and it’s better to leave it behind, let it go, leave it in its final resting place, buried amidst the almosts and the could have beens... 

It doesn’t matter that her name, it’s always there, on the tip of her tongue, on the edge of her lips...

Alex... Alex... Alex...

The past is the past. 

And you can’t bring things back to life after they’re gone.

Not countless lives taken at your hands and not what finally felt like a chance at happiness. 

—

Later, Sam pushes the heavy door to Oakley Bistro, and it slowly opens with a loud creak. She was running late and had told Lena not wait on her. Lena has protested, probably convinced that Sam would stand them up, which she admits to herself that she had considered. She meanders past the hostess station and can see the two women, contrasting blonde and raven hair, at a small round table near the window, looking out at the bustling street. 

As she draws closer, their voices come into clarity and she catches the tail end of their conversation. 

She sees Kara shrug. “I just, I don’t know. Should I bring it up?”

Sam tenses just as she steps into view, sliding her bag onto the windowsill beside the open chair and forcing a smile as she turns to her friends. She doesn’t know what ‘it’ is, but she knows she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I would love it if we didn’t.”

“Sam!” Kara exclaims, her face brightening but with an apologetic look across her face. “I’m sorry. Look, I’m just happy to see you, okay?” Kara tells her, arms outstretched.

Sam leans into the hug, and nearly winces at the warmth of it. It’s almost too much. She pulls away quickly.

“Me too,” Sam replies, looking down, distracting her gaze to smooth her shirt, avoiding Kara’s piercing eyes. 

They all take their seats, and there is a long awkward beat of silence.

“So...” Lena blurts our first. 

“Is it too early for a beer?” Sam suggest with a nervous smile. 

“Drinking on the clock, that’s the Sam I’ve missed,” Lena replies energetically. 

“We’ve missed,” Kara adds, reaching her hand over and squeezing Sam’s forearm. 

“I’ve missed you both too,” Sam replies with a nod, squeezing back tears.

Lena’s hand shoots up, her eyes finding their waiter. “Sir! Drink menu please!”

Sam and Kara just laugh. And for once in a long while, Sam feels herself relax.

—

Alex is standing in the center of the DEO headquarters when Kara floats in through the balcony window above, wearing her blue and red, her feet landing gracefully at the center of the DEO logo etched on the ground. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she apologizes, rushing towards her sister. “But I brought you something!” she adds, revealing a brown paper to go bag.

Alex’s eyes note the Oakley symbol on the bag.

“Lemon blueberry scone?” Alex asks hopefully, taking the bag and reaching inside. 

Kara nods, a self-satisfied smile on her face.

“You’re forgiven,” Alex says right before taking a bite from the soft crumbly goodness. She savors the taste for a moment and then motions Kara to follow her down the hall where she can eat in privacy. 

Kara laughs. “You act like you haven’t eaten all day.”

Alex shakes her head. “I haven’t. J’onn didn’t exactly prepare me for just how demanding this job is.” 

“If I’d known, I would have brought you an actual meal!”

“It’s fine. There’s no time to eat anyway. Speaking of...how was lunch?”

“Good...it was nice,” Kara tells her, and Alex can tell she’s being cautious, treading lightly, wondering how much she should say as she tiptoes around the obvious. 

Alex slows as they reach a private area and turns to face Kara, leaning her back against the wall. She bends her right knee and lifts her leg until the sole of her foot rests flat on the wall. 

She knows it would be better not to ask, healthier, but she’s never been able to stop herself from wondering, from worrying, from caring...

“So, um...how is she?” Alex asks softly. 

Alex can see Kara shift her weight nervously at the question. 

“She’s back to work at L-Corp. Lena insisted she take longer, but she refused.”

“So she’s okay?”

“She’s...different,” Kara replies.

Alex’s brow furrows. “Different how?”

“You still haven’t heard from her,” Kara says solemnly. 

Alex shakes her head sadly. “Not a word.”

“I’m sorry, Alex. Maybe she just needs time to come around?” Kara suggests, always the optimist. 

“It’s been three months, Kara,” Alex replies firmly. 

“People process things at different speeds.”

Alex shakes her head. Her jaw clenches and the ache in her chest flares, and she begins to regret asking, even if she couldn’t have stopped herself. 

“No. It’s not just that, and you know it. You said it yourself. She’s different,” Alex rebuts. 

“Alex...” Kara whispers sympathetically. 

Alex feels Kara’s hand reach for hers, and the touch is too much. Alex shakes her away. She can’t feel this, not now, not here. 

“Don’t. Please... just let it go, ok? I have...” she says, her voice trailing as she pushes herself off of the wall and starts down the hallway, back to her job, back to this life, back to this agony that just won’t end. 

—

After lunch, Sam and Lena stroll side by side down the city sidewalk on their way back to the L-Corp office. Sunlight reflects off the skyscrapers. The spring warmth feels good on Sam’s arms, and the noise of the city is somehow comforting. 

They round a corner and all of the sudden, she is filled with a strange sense of familiarity. Her eyes wander, and it only takes a moment to remember. This was where she had parked that night...

That night... when she had thought Alex had come to tell her she had a degenerative brain disease or terminal cancer. Before she knew it could get much worse than that. That night... where instead, Alex had instead told her she wanted to give this a go, that she wanted Sam, but she wanted to get it right. That night... when Alex has walked her to her car, when their hands had grazed, their bodies inches from each other, and she had never felt so safe or so hopeful or so alive. That night...when she felt like maybe finally something was going to go her way. 

God, was she so wrong. 

The memory, it’s crystal clear, but it doesn’t feel like her own anymore. More like a scene she watched sometime in a movie, something that happened to somebody else. 

“Sam? You still with me?”

The voice shakes Sam from her thoughts. She looks up at Lena. 

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“Just asking how the little squirt is doing.”

“Ruby? She’s... okay, I think. She’s been seeing the school counselor, I think it’s helping.”

“See? Therapy. It’s a good thing.”

“You can make me take time off of work, but you cannot make me see a shrink, Lena Luthor. I mean, what would I even... say.”

“Just lie like I do,” Lena answers with a casual shrug that makes Sam scoff in disbelief. “What? It’s still someone to talk to.”

“You’re something else,” Sam says with an incredulous laugh, shaking her head. Her face grows more serious then and her voice softens. “Look, I should have said this a long time ago, but thank you. For coming to Ruby’s rescue that day. And watching out for her while I was...”

Lena’s brow furrows in confusion. “What are you talking about? You know I’d do absolutely anything for Ruby, but it was Alex who stayed with her. Up until those last few days.”

“Oh. I didn’t...”

“She was quite insistent,” Lena continues. “All ‘Ruby’s safer with me,’ she kept saying. It would have been annoying if she wasn’t right,” Lena adds with a slight eye roll. “I don’t understand. Ruby didn’t tell you?” 

“Ruby doesn’t talk to me about anything from when I was... missing,” she says with a sad, forlorn shrug. 

I’m sure she just wants to forget it,” Lena suggests.

“Better if she does. If only I could...”

Lena nods. A long beat of silence passes. Sam glances over and sees Lena wringing her hands, as if trying to figure out how to say what she wants to say, and Sam just braces. 

“So I take it you and Alex...” Lena starts, and Sam feels her body tighten. “You still haven’t spoken then.”

Sam simply shakes her head. She doesn’t want to have this conversation. She doesn’t want to talk about it, about what happened, about _her_.

“Oh, Sam...” Lena replies with a hint of chastisement and a heavy touch ofdisappointment. 

“It’s messy, Lena,” Sam blurts our defensively. “You should know things had sort of come to a screeching halt even before, and then all of this,” Sam gestures to herself. “It’s just better this way.”

“What way? You both miserable and alone?” Lena sneers.

“Lena, please. That’s not fair.”

“It’s clear that woman cares a great deal about you.”

Sam shakes her head. “That’s why I can’t do this to her.”

“Do what?” Lena demands. “Be with her? Love her?”

“Lena, I don’t-“

“Sam,” Lena interrupts firmly. 

Sam lets out a deep heavy breath. 

“I just don’t know how to be that person with her anymore. Carefree and relaxed and happy? Knowing she knows exactly what I am and what I did.”

“Oh, Sam, you didn’t, that wasn’t-“

“Lena,” Sam interjects. “Like I said, I’m not looking for a shrink, ok?” she spits, harsh enough for Lena to back down.

Sam doesn’t look back over at her, and Lena doesn’t add another word. 

They take the rest of the walk back to the office in silence. 

—

“How was your first day back?” Ruby asks, bouncing in the passenger seat of the car as they idle in the pick up line outside Davis Middle School. “Did you make any new friends? Did you have someone to sit with at lunch?”

Sam chuckles. “Wow, who’s the mom now?” 

“Learned from the best,” Ruby replies, beaming, and Sam reaches over and takes her daughter’s hand, wondering how she was lucky enough to get this kid. 

“Well, actually, I had a lunch date.”

“”Really?!”

“Lena and Kara took me out to welcome me back to the trenches.”

“Oh...” Ruby says, her voice laced with disappointment, her head dropping.

“What’s that face?” Sam asks, poking her daughter in the side to elicit a smile. 

“Nothing,” Ruby replies with a squirm. “I’m glad it was good.”

The Cadillac finally pulls out of the school driveway and onto the street. Sam glances back over to see Ruby, quiet, eyes staring out the window. She should probe, but instead she lets it go. 

Mom of the year, she thinks sarcastically, chiding herself. 

A few minutes, they steer into their driveway, and Sam pushes the gear to park and turns off the ignition. She looks over and Ruby who hasn’t moved from her seat.

Sam swallows hard and lingers. She’s about to say something when Ruby finally looks back over.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, sweetie.”

“Please don’t be mad at me but...”

Sam turns to face her daughter. “Mad? Why would I be mad at you?” she asks, frowning.

Ruby looks up guiltily. 

Sam’s eyes widen and her face falls. “Wait, what did you do? Please, not another black eye, Rubes. We cannot afford one of those fancy private school that takes in delinquents who’ve gotten expelled. 

“No, nothing like that. I didn’t do anything... I just...”

“What is it? You can tell me anything.”

Ruby bows her head again. “I miss Alex,” she whispers. 

Sam’s taken off guard. She feels her throat catch and a knot form in her stomach. 

Sam had half-expected awkwardness with Kara, even the interrogation from Lena, but this, this she didn’t see coming. 

Sam shifts her weight and looks away, trying to figure out how to explain to her.

Ruby’s voice quivers. “I miss her, and I just- Why don’t you?”

Sam feels her chest tighten at the accusation. She wants to tell Ruby that sometimes things change, sometimes irrevocably, and there is no going back, there are no second chances. Some things break and they can’t be put back together. 

But she doesn’t. 

A beat passes, and Ruby finally pushes open the passenger door and steps out, slamming it behind her before rushing inside. 

Sam grabs her bag and trails in behind her. She finds Ruby in the kitchen, avoiding eye contact, but the look of betrayal on her face is unmistakable. Her heart sinks. She moves closer to her daughter. 

“You never talk about her staying here with you.”

Ruby shrugs. “Every time I say her name, you get that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“That one. Like you wish I’d just change the subject,” Ruby snaps back.

Sam sighs. “Ruby, sweetie...” she starts.

Just then, her cell phone starts buzzing in her purse. She reaches for it and eyes the name on the caller ID.

“It’s your Auntie Lena, how about you get started on your homework? We can talk about this later.” 

“Whatever,” Ruby spits back before turning and grabbing her backpack and heading for the stairs, her feet hitting each step with a stomp. 

Sam almost calls after her, but it doesn’t seem right to rebuke her when this all own fault. She clicks her phone and lifts it to her ear.

“Lena. What’s up?”

—

Alex arranges wine glasses and tumblers and bottles into rows across her kitchen island. Nearby, Kara is bouncing around as she sets up decorations like this is some sort of birthday party. It hasn’t even started yet, and Alex is already regretting her decision. 

Kara insisted it was to celebrate her new position, the end of her first week as director, but she’s not unconvinced it was also just a ploy to resocialize her, integrate her back into society from where she had retreated months before.

She’d fought her, but Kara was relentless, so finally after negotiating a limited guest list and no cliche congratulatory cake, she’d agreed. 

Even if she’d never admit it, maybe Kara was right. Maybe she needed this. At the least, it was probably better for her than another Saturday night drinking alone, a bottle of scotch to keep her company. 

Just a few hours, she thinks. Just a few hours to smile and laugh and crack jokes and pretend that Alex Danvers is just fine. 

—

“You know, I never pegged you for management,” Lena says.

Alex stands beside her and Kara. It is hours later now, and Alex is a few glasses in. She’s started to loosen up, even enjoy herself. 

“Harsh,” Alex quips back at Lena.

“No! I don’t mean it like that. I’m just saying, I know management, I do management. It’s not exciting. And you’re a woman of action.”

“J’onn wanted me to have a life. Clearly that’s going well,” Alex replies derisively. 

“Hey, this is a start,” Kara says, gesturing around to the collection of friends.

And maybe Kara is right. She has friends. Great friends. People who have loved her through it all. She shouldn’t be so ungrateful. But it doesn’t take away the void inside.

“You’re right,” Alex tells Kara, giving her a soft smile. “Thank you for the party.”

Just then, Alex gaze shifts beyond Kara, to her front door slowly opening. Her eyes narrow. It’s late, and everyone who is supposed to be here has already arrived. 

Alex swallows hard as the figure appears. Her chestnut hair falls in smooth waves framing her face. She’s wearing a deep forest green silk blouse and tight fitting dark jeans that hug her hips. Black pointed heels make her tall thin frame look even leaner. 

“Alex, earth to Alex,” Kara says, waving her hand in front of her sisters face, but Alex is still looking right past her. “What are you- Oh...” Kara says as her head turns and her eyes find where Alex’s have gone. 

Alex blinks her eyes deliberately, like she’s seeing an apparition, like she must have had too many drinks and she’s starting to hallucinate. Because standing in the doorway, hesitant, almost timid, is Sam. Alex feels her breath catch in her throat at the sight of her. Was she always this beautiful? Alex thinks. Did she block that part out? Was this one of the stages of grief? Amnesia? 

And all of a sudden she feels herself imploding. 

Alex’s gaze snaps back to Kara. “What is she- ? Kara,” Alex says, demanding an explanation, despite the shaking in her voice. 

Me? I didn’t—,” Kara replies defensively. 

“I did,” Lena interjects. Both Alex and Kara swiftly turn to her with wide eyes and mouths agape. “Please, don’t harp. I honestly didn’t think she’d show,” Lena adds, nonchalantly. 

Alex tosses back the last swig of her drink and reaches for Kara’s. “Give me that,” she insists before taking it out of Kara’s hand. 

What? That’s- You don’t even like-“ Kara protests, just as Alex swallows it down. 

Lena grimaces. “I’ll get you another.”

— 

Sam can’t remember how long she had lingered outside the door, listening to the hum and buzz of voices inside, trying to make out Alex’s, wondering what it would feel like to hear the sound of her laugh again. After a couple of unanswered knocks that probably no one could have heard about the music and the conversation, she had tentatively reached for the knob and let herself in. Sam’s eyes found her almost immediately, something about her energy has always drawn Sam’s gaze, even from the very beginning, before she knew what it meant. Alex hasn’t noticed her yet, and she uses the moment to take in the sight of her. Her auburn hair is shorter now, one side cropped neatly, giving full view of her angular jaw, her slender neck. She’s thinner, maybe, but her muscles look more defined, with her upper arms just visible beyond her sleeves. She’s so beautiful, it carves an ache into her chest that Sam hadn’t expected. She thought she could do this, thought this would be easier. She’d been surviving just fine for months, but now, now she feels like she can’t breathe.

All of a sudden, as if sending her presence, Alex’s eyes find hers, and they lock for just a moment. Sam sees Alex’s expression promptly change, her eyes wide with shock and dread. Alex looks away almost immediately. “Shit,” Sam mutters under her breath. What was she thinking? 

—- 

“You’re missing all the fun out here,” Winn says as he sidles up next to Alex on the balcony.

She’s leaning up against the railing, looking out over the city below. It’s a warm night, and the wind feels good on her skin.

She looks up at him with a wry smile. 

“Is Lena making drunkenly suggestive comments about Supergirl in front of Kara, who looks like she might die of embarrassment?” Alex suggests.

Winn laughs. “It is classic!” 

Alex smirks. She glances inside where she can faintly hear the conversation. “Come on, I don’t do laundry, but you show me that washboard, and I’d be on my hands and knees scrubbing,” Lena says, her voice just a touched slurred, a smirk on her face. Nearby, Kara looks mortified. Sam stands between them, her mouth slightly open with amusement, head tilted back in laughter. It’s too much to take in and Alex averts her view before Sam sees her staring. 

Winn leans over the rail next to her, a long moment of silence passing before he finally speaks. 

“So you gonna talk to her?” Winn says, his tone more serious now. 

“Who?” she asks coolly.

“Haha,” Winn replies deliberately. “Funny.” 

Alex finally shakes her head. “I just don’t know why she’s here.”

“Why don’t you ask her.” 

Alex looks down at the drink dangling between her fingers and gives it a swirl, listening to the ice clink against the glass. She’s been downing them eagerly since the night began and Sam’s arrival only hastened her efforts. Now, she could practically feel the scotch numbing her senses. But it still wasn’t enough. 

“I can’t, Winn. I can barely...”

Look at her, she thinks. Be near her. Exist in the same space as her. But she doesn’t say any of those things, because none of them seem enough to encompass what this feels like. 

“I know... I know...” Winn whispers, moving closer and wrapping his arm around her shoulders. She leans her head towards him and releases a deep sigh. 

—-

Alex leans onto the kitchen island, elbows propped up, feeling the weight of intoxication piling up. A few colleagues have filtered out by now, leaving just the core group, just her closest friends, and _her_.

Alex glances over at her, the first time in hours that she’s let her gaze drift, and when she finds her, she is met with Sam’s eyes. Alex looks away quickly and takes another swig. When she looks up a moment later, Sam is moving towards her, crossing the room in a few quick paces until she reaches the island and comes around to Alex’s side. She settles a few inches away. Alex can’t bring herself to look up. 

“I hate to break it to you,” Alex starts, “but you’re not gonna find a single drop of grapefruit juice in this whole place.”

“How about what you’re having?” Sam says, her voice sounds smooth and casual, and it almost hurts Alex’s ears with its goodness. “It’s always better,” Sam adds.

Alex nods before reaching for a spare tumbler from the freezer, setting a large square of ice in with a clink, and pouring two fingers of amber liquid. She sets it down on the counter and slides it over.

She isn’t sure if it’s the icy glass or the gentle accidental graze of Sam’s fingertips on hers as the glass changes hands, but Alex feels her body shiver. She tenses, trying to hold back the reaction from spreading through her. 

It’s overwhelming just being next to her, close enough she can almost feel the heat from Sam’s body, but worlds apart. 

What she’d give to go back, she thinks. To go back to a different time, when the heaviness that hung between them was possibility. 

She watches Sam take a slow deliberate swig. Alex waits for her to flinch - it’s straight scotch, it should burn - but Sam doesn’t. 

Alex’s eyes remain on her. There’s something different about Sam. A seriousness, a steadiness, a strength but also a sadness that permeates her, that fills the air around her. Alex wonders if this is what everyone sees when they look at her now, why their eyes are full of curiosity and sympathy, even pity. 

“I’m sorry I crashed your party,” Sam says as she sets the glass down.

“You didn’t,” Alex replies with a head shake, waving her head too insistently. 

“Don’t lie. I saw the look on your face when I walked in. You definitely didn’t tell Lena to invite me. So thank you for not giving me the boot.”

Alex shrugs. “I’m not that person,” she says. Sometimes she wishes she was.

Sam nods. “I know you’re not. You’re a good person, Alex.”

“Sam...” Alex responds instinctively, her voice softer, like she’s reaching across the void, pleading to connect. 

“Congratulations. Director, that’s big deal,” Sam breaks in, shattering the faint glimpse of intimacy. “I know I said a lot of angry things to you when I found out about your job, your real job...”

“You had every right.”

“I didn’t. But I’m happy for you. Truly. You deserve this.”

“Thank you...” Alex replies softly, her eyes moving back down to her glass where the ice cube has almost completely deliquesced. “Where’s Ruby tonight?” Alex finally asks after a long silence. 

“Sitter. Figured this was more of an adult evening.”

“She’s always welcome here.”

“Well, maybe I should clarify. I needed an adult evening.”

Alex nods. 

“She misses you,” Sam says softly.

“I miss her too...” she replies forlornly. Both of you, she wants to add. 

“Look, Alex,” Sam says, her head tilted to Alex, meeting her gaze.

“Yeah?” Alex whispers, her voice suddenly laced with hope, with an optimism so real, it aches.

“I don’t really know how to say this. I know we haven’t spoken in... a while. A lot’s happened, you know? But I just...” Sam shifts her weight nervously, and Alex feels her heart swell. “I thought, if you aren’t vehemently opposed, I thought maybe we could try to be friends.”

Alex’s face falls. She turns her head to hide her reaction. She feels her stomach churn, like she might be sick. 

“Friends...” Alex repeats, as if saying aloud would make the pain of it run through her more quickly, like tearing off a bandaid.

“For Ruby,” Sam adds. 

“Oh...” Alex whispers and all of a sudden, it makes sense. Sam doesn’t want to be here. She isn’t there for herself. That’s the reason Alex couldn’t come up with any plausible explanation for why she’d show after months of radio silence. She wasn’t there for her but for Ruby.

Sam shakes her head as if she suddenly realizes how awful she must sound to ask this. “If it’s too much, I get it. Just tell me.”

“No.”

“Okay... that’s okay.” Sam pushes herself away from the counter with her palms. 

“No, I mean- No, it’s not too much,” Alex says, finally looking up to find Sam’s eyes again, deep and brown and heart wrenching. 

Sam smiles gently, and Alex forces a small one in return. 

It’s the right thing to do. Because if there’s anyone who doesn’t deserve to suffer from this mess she’s made, it’s Ruby.


End file.
